Extending XP Out of Vista Ignorance

Normally, I'm not a big supporter of big business. I buy AMD processors to keep Intel honest. I use Linux whenever possible to keep Microsoft honest. Competition leads to better prices. In my small way, I feel that I am feeding the competition by going with the underdogs whenever it is feasible to do so.

Having said that, I believe Microsoft is getting a really bad rap over Vista. Corporate America is not using it. Information Week reports that only about 10% of American businesses have made the switch and perhaps 4% of UK businesses.

What does this say? It says that 90% of American businesses and perhaps 96% of UK businesses are completely ignorant about Vista.

I've been running with Vista for over a year now. I've even made the jump to Vista 64 on one of my systems at home. Aside from a few hiccups when trying to do some pretty interesting customizations, it has been flawless. In my opinion, it's even better than XP. Once you get over the 2 hour learning curve, things are easier to get to with less stuttering. In other words, it's more intuitive and runs smoother.

It's kind of ironic at the company where I work (we also have not made the move to Vista and have a most aptly ignorant IT department), they are implementing all kinds of spyware/anitvirus software to cut down on the Internet traffic. Incidentally, most of these antivirus packages are more of a detriment than the actual viruses they supposedly protect you from. Vista has things built into it to protect from this kind of stuff. One of IT's complaints is about Vista's security features that are "built into the kernel". Apparently these features break some older software. I don't even feel the need to comment on that logic.

Microsoft has said they will continue to sell XP until July for certain vendors. It was set to cutoff at the end of January. They have a new Windows 7 coming out in 2010. That'll be about a 6 month window where the big PC manufacturers may not have the OS inventory to sell to their corporate clients with ignorant IT departments.