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Comment Vista is a step forward in security, but many businesses will
be stuck with Windows XP for years to come, due to the cost of
upgrading, the value of existing assets, and compatibility issues that
trump security features.
As I write this, Microsoft is launching the consumer version of Vista
in New York, apparently with dancers in tights scaling the side of an
office building to form a human billboard. It sounds like the
highlight of the launch, which reads in many news reports as a real
yawner. It's too bad in a way, because Vista's security architecture
makes it a much better product. But there aren't too many consumers
lined up to buy Vista.
It's unfortunate that some of the useful features like full disk
encryption (BitLocker), license transferability, and support inside
virtual machines aren't enabled in the consumer (OEM) version of
Vista, but that's a renewed discussion for another time.
I think Vista is a great advancement in safety and security for
consumers, but most of those folks don't know what the real
differences are. Consumers will just end up with Vista (or perhaps OS
X, or even the long shot, Linux) the next time they buy a computer.
They'll still need anti-virus, anti-spyware, and all the rest.
Consumers who do understand what Vista offers aren't exactly lining up
either, because they also know about the heavy hardware requirements,
the lack of drivers, no gaming need for DirectX 10 (yet), which is
exclusive to Vista, and some of the questionable product activation
decisions made by Microsoft.
For businesses it's another story. They do know and care about Vista's
security improvements. It really is better. It's a big step forward
from Windows XP security, I agree. And if one believes Microsoft's
marketing rhetoric, most businesses will be deploying Vista in the
next three to six months, right? Not so fast...
Why is it that Windows XP will remain the corporate standard for years
to come?
The cost of upgrading from XP (or, why everyone loves Vista)
Computers are assets in a business environment where the cost to
maintain them far exceeds the purchase price of the hardware and
software. Businesses want to keep costs and expenditures down, but
more importantly they want to get the best value from their assets.
Computers are only important to a company because of the applications
that they run - and compatibility is key here. Unless an enterprise
application that's critical to the business' operation requires
Windows Vista, what is the business reason to upgrade?
I'm scratching my head on that one. Most businesses will stick with
Windows XP for the next few years. Security by itself is not a
business reason to upgrade security and Windows don't exist in a
vacuum. And yet, just about every vendor on the planet will now be
telling you and your business about the need to upgrade to Windows
Vista. Let's take a look a just a few of the reasons why.
Consultants love Vista because it means big consulting dollars to
evaluate, plan, test, migrate and implement new desktops and server
platforms in business environments. Vista is different enough, in
fact, they may even need to raise their rates.
Resellers love Vista because the hardware requirements are very steep,
meaning heavy new hardware purchases and new software licenses all
around. Hardware manufacturers love Vista and are happy to advertise
this fact because it just doesn't run well on old hardware (old = one
year old). It doesn't run well at all on any laptop today that isn't
high-end, say, anything less than dual 2.0 Ghz processors in a Core 2
Duo with a bare minimum gigabyte of RAM. Ouch. Video card
manufacturers really love Vista because, for the first time ever, the
majority of the population who don't play games (business users) will
still need a high-end video card just to get all the OS features
enabled in their word processor and web browser.
IT and security admins love Vista because they will need new training
and new certifications to put on their resume. Security vendors love
Vista because all customers will still need anti-virus, anti-spam,
anti-spyware, anti-phishing, anti-adware, anti-fungal, anti-everything
software. Help Desk folks love Vista because it provides long-term job
security. And end users love Vista because it means they get some new
training and a fancy new computer, albeit one that's faster yet
somehow runs slower than the one they had before.
Content producers love Vista. Computer scientist Peter Guttman has a
fascinating DRM discussion about how Vista purposely degrades "premium
content" and affects what you can do with that content. It also
affects system performance, stability, support, and hardware and
software costs.
Apple shareholders love Vista because it will drive more folks to the
Mac OS X environment than ever before.
Spyware and adware companies love Vista because the Internet Explorer
7 browser still supports ActiveX, an ill-conceived language dating
back to the Netscape days. But I'm getting ahead of myself oops, IE7
and its new ActiveX controls run just fine on Windows XP as well.
Criminals are putting their botnet software and keyloggers in many of
those "Vista Activation Crack" torrents on the Internet. Even virus
writers love Vista, because it gives them fun new challenges to adapt
and overcome Vista's security model in potentially trivial ways, like
social engineering.
A great many companies and individuals, legitimate or otherwise, are
set to make quite a bit of money off the early adopters of Vista. And
it's all just to replace existing office technologies such as Windows
XP that often perform adequately and do the job today. Of course,
today's corporate installs may or may not be secure...
http://www.theregister.com/2007/02/01/vista_waiting_game/
be stuck with Windows XP for years to come, due to the cost of
upgrading, the value of existing assets, and compatibility issues that
trump security features.
As I write this, Microsoft is launching the consumer version of Vista
in New York, apparently with dancers in tights scaling the side of an
office building to form a human billboard. It sounds like the
highlight of the launch, which reads in many news reports as a real
yawner. It's too bad in a way, because Vista's security architecture
makes it a much better product. But there aren't too many consumers
lined up to buy Vista.
It's unfortunate that some of the useful features like full disk
encryption (BitLocker), license transferability, and support inside
virtual machines aren't enabled in the consumer (OEM) version of
Vista, but that's a renewed discussion for another time.
I think Vista is a great advancement in safety and security for
consumers, but most of those folks don't know what the real
differences are. Consumers will just end up with Vista (or perhaps OS
X, or even the long shot, Linux) the next time they buy a computer.
They'll still need anti-virus, anti-spyware, and all the rest.
Consumers who do understand what Vista offers aren't exactly lining up
either, because they also know about the heavy hardware requirements,
the lack of drivers, no gaming need for DirectX 10 (yet), which is
exclusive to Vista, and some of the questionable product activation
decisions made by Microsoft.
For businesses it's another story. They do know and care about Vista's
security improvements. It really is better. It's a big step forward
from Windows XP security, I agree. And if one believes Microsoft's
marketing rhetoric, most businesses will be deploying Vista in the
next three to six months, right? Not so fast...
Why is it that Windows XP will remain the corporate standard for years
to come?
The cost of upgrading from XP (or, why everyone loves Vista)
Computers are assets in a business environment where the cost to
maintain them far exceeds the purchase price of the hardware and
software. Businesses want to keep costs and expenditures down, but
more importantly they want to get the best value from their assets.
Computers are only important to a company because of the applications
that they run - and compatibility is key here. Unless an enterprise
application that's critical to the business' operation requires
Windows Vista, what is the business reason to upgrade?
I'm scratching my head on that one. Most businesses will stick with
Windows XP for the next few years. Security by itself is not a
business reason to upgrade security and Windows don't exist in a
vacuum. And yet, just about every vendor on the planet will now be
telling you and your business about the need to upgrade to Windows
Vista. Let's take a look a just a few of the reasons why.
Consultants love Vista because it means big consulting dollars to
evaluate, plan, test, migrate and implement new desktops and server
platforms in business environments. Vista is different enough, in
fact, they may even need to raise their rates.
Resellers love Vista because the hardware requirements are very steep,
meaning heavy new hardware purchases and new software licenses all
around. Hardware manufacturers love Vista and are happy to advertise
this fact because it just doesn't run well on old hardware (old = one
year old). It doesn't run well at all on any laptop today that isn't
high-end, say, anything less than dual 2.0 Ghz processors in a Core 2
Duo with a bare minimum gigabyte of RAM. Ouch. Video card
manufacturers really love Vista because, for the first time ever, the
majority of the population who don't play games (business users) will
still need a high-end video card just to get all the OS features
enabled in their word processor and web browser.
IT and security admins love Vista because they will need new training
and new certifications to put on their resume. Security vendors love
Vista because all customers will still need anti-virus, anti-spam,
anti-spyware, anti-phishing, anti-adware, anti-fungal, anti-everything
software. Help Desk folks love Vista because it provides long-term job
security. And end users love Vista because it means they get some new
training and a fancy new computer, albeit one that's faster yet
somehow runs slower than the one they had before.
Content producers love Vista. Computer scientist Peter Guttman has a
fascinating DRM discussion about how Vista purposely degrades "premium
content" and affects what you can do with that content. It also
affects system performance, stability, support, and hardware and
software costs.
Apple shareholders love Vista because it will drive more folks to the
Mac OS X environment than ever before.
Spyware and adware companies love Vista because the Internet Explorer
7 browser still supports ActiveX, an ill-conceived language dating
back to the Netscape days. But I'm getting ahead of myself oops, IE7
and its new ActiveX controls run just fine on Windows XP as well.
Criminals are putting their botnet software and keyloggers in many of
those "Vista Activation Crack" torrents on the Internet. Even virus
writers love Vista, because it gives them fun new challenges to adapt
and overcome Vista's security model in potentially trivial ways, like
social engineering.
A great many companies and individuals, legitimate or otherwise, are
set to make quite a bit of money off the early adopters of Vista. And
it's all just to replace existing office technologies such as Windows
XP that often perform adequately and do the job today. Of course,
today's corporate installs may or may not be secure...
http://www.theregister.com/2007/02/01/vista_waiting_game/