* Readers respond to last week's newsletter
I received a large outpouring of e-mail responses to last week’s newsletter highlighting Steve Ballmer’s claim that Windows users were now the biggest threat to Microsoft’s bottom line. That is, users who refused to upgrade to the “latest and greatest” version of the operating system.
What’s surprising, though, is that the overwhelming majority of the comments I received were in full agreement with Ballmer, but also served to identify the respondents as part of the threat!
Here are a few quotes to show the thoughts of your fellow readers:
* “Not only are users not willing to upgrade, they aren’t going to and most don’t need to.”
* “They [the reader’s customers] feel like extortion tactics are being used and it’s hard, as you know, to sell the upgrade when what they have works just fine.”
* “Every time Microsoft comes out with a new version of something, it has more features. That translates into more lines of code. More lines of code translate into more chance for bugs and for vulnerabilities.”
* “I stayed on NT4 as [Windows] 2000 and all its iterations became available because NT4 was stable and it worked. I didn’t care about the pretty GUI and none of the newer software options prompted me to change. Some of the software I used was difficult to configure, and I had no idea how it would work on a new [operating system]. I could have tested it, but why waste my time? Eventually it was the hardware that forced me to change.”
* “I have maintained for several years that total costs for software and hardware upgrades are the biggest driving forces behind the expanding ‘IT economy’, and that it is a more significant part of the U.S. economy than some would have us believe. There may come a day when the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board whispers in the ears of the WinTel cartel ‘The economy needs a boost. Come out with a new CPU and [operating system] to give it some stimulus.'”
The amount of work required to upgrade, the cost of licenses and the cost of new hardware were the biggest reasons cited to avoid this constant churn that Microsoft upgrades seem to produce:
New Server OS
Desktop refresh
Server Refresh
New Desktop OS
Is there a way out of this rat race? A way out, that is, that doesn’t require switching to non-Microsoft operating systems and applications? I have some ideas, but I’d like to hear yours first. What do you do to avoid being constantly in “upgrade mode”? How do you assure that your network and users aren’t missing the features and functionality they need without spending huge amounts of money and time testing and installing new software? I promise to share (anonymously, if you prefer) the best suggestions.
