Ballmer: Stay on Windows XP and you will face a backlash

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is warning IT organizations that they risk provoking an end user backlash if they don’t move off the XP operating system.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/mana...-organisation/news/index.cfm?RSS&newsid=13179

"If you deploy a four or five-year old operating system today, most people will ask their boss why the heck they don't have the stuff they have at home,” the Microsoft CEO said.

In an interview at an event to mark the extension of Microsoft's collaboration with EMC to help IT professionals improve virtualisation, security and content management, Ballmer touched on the progress of Windows 7.

He stressed that its faster performance, longer battery life and simplified security settings will be "a pretty good step forward in terms of what users care about."

For these reasons and others, Ballmer warned that, enterprises that stick with Windows XP too long risk complaints from impatient users who have been using newer computers running Vista and Windows 7 at home.

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Lol. The company I work for still uses XP. No complaints from anyone. The only complaints we have was when we were using the old accounting software "AS400"... We have since upgraded to Netsuite.

Seems like a stupid ploy. How many workers are complaining that their computer are running on XP? When you're in the business where you have over 2500 computers, all in different specs, you really thing "upgrading" to an uncompilable vista is a good idea? lol.

 

Most computers used by businesses aren't new/modern, and are not capable of running Vista or Windows 7.

 

Running W7 doesn't require too much more than XP in my experience. I've tested W7 on several old Dells, and non had problems. All ran pretty smoothly. I think the real issue with upgrading is the cost (and lack of payoff), not so much that the computers can't handle it.

 

"Backlash"? A lot of the people I know who have Vista get rid of it and want to go back to XP. Ballmer's just trying to scare companies into upgrading... people don't actually want it. It's a lot of flash for no benefit.

 

Most companies will skip an OS so it was inevitable that Vista was going to be a home user OS for the most part. What they will do next is wait until Windows 7 sp1 and then upgrade--which should be about the time Windows XP hits its end of life

 

I agree. From the second I read it, it's the first thing I thought. Now, we could both certainly be wrong, but my suspicion is that he's trying to get companies to upgrade.

 

Steve Ballmer is a liar. As long as it works, end users don't really care.

/thread

 

This used to be called FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) and has long been a popular tool of bullies.

Why would any business deploy Vista now (even admitting that is is better than XP) with Windows 7 on the immediate horizon?

 

Although I like Windows Vista, I have to agree. When I first read that, two things popped into my head...

1. Wow, he's really trying to milk Vista for all it's worth... Just give up already, perception has trumped reality and it's perceived by many (still!) to be a smoldering failure of an OS.

2. People will actually question the decision to stick with XP? My second thought was that employees would actually embrace a company's decision to stick with XP with open arms, given all of those bad things they either heard or experienced with Vista.

 

Well said.

 

well, one thing i found that is true is longer battery life. from my own personal experience on xp and vista on my 1530, vista has about 30 more minutes of battery life on a 6 cell.

 

Most companies aren't running their desktops on batteries anyways.

 

Tool of the year.

 

I thought a tool was actually supposed to do something useful.

 

I think Ballmer's just mad that MS caved in and realized they will HAVE to offer windows seven as an upgrade path to XP users bypassing vista altogether thus losing out millions to businesses that skipped a step. And now he is adding to his paranoia that businesses will remain with XP a little longer.. even when seven comes out. But in reality, his fears have merit since in this sour economy most businesses will probably stick with XP on their older machines until they upgrade to newer hardware. Companies will probably also delay hardware purchases because of financial difficulties.

In short, MS missed the window to maximize profits when they failed in the longhorn project and back stepped and rushed out vista with an 11th hour change in hardware requirement with the whole "vista capable" fiasco. Now when they finally get it right the economy is in free fall. And yes, most workstations aren't concerned about Seven's improved power management lol. MS is losing control over their customer base and oem partners.. and Ballmer doe not like it. MS is finally doing what WE want Eg.. offering direct upgrade path from XP to seven, extending XP to businesses etc.. Balllmer can talk all he wants but MS is indeed losing their grip.

 

Your work computer may not need what you at home. I used to use a old 1995 PC that ran IBM AS/400 software to do data entry unless the PC dies it could last forever.

 

What a load of FUD.

Why should companies upgrade if their system does everything they need?

For an organisation who currently has an XP setup, I can't think of a single thing that Vista or Windows 7 can do better? Except give them a headache with the activation requirements, that corporate copies of XP don't have.

 

as an admin, we only have a few vista machines (for the semi-capable). NO WAY going to deploy it to the other end users. 7's looking up though. pretty compatible with most of our apps.

 

I think seven will give IT departments more control to secure networks (especially wifi) and will be easier to manage them. The problem is, IT departments don't have any say on budget expenditures towards PC purchases. And the managers that do don't care about the new features that make it easier to manage networks. They just tell the IT department to deal with it and that there is no money to waste at this time.

 

Well he makes a point. They can't stay on XP forever

 

MS has already vowed to support XP Pro until April 2014. That's years away and probably the lifespan of windows seven itself. Ballmer is sweating beads because he knows MS is already committed to support XP for many more years. I can see lots of companies delaying upgrades until the economy turns around. At this point, there is not enough motivation to migrate for a business trying to cut costs. And lets face it, vista and seven really don't add that much if any value to the bottom line. So companies can ride XP all the way until seven's successor rolls out which may indeed offer more value.

MS no longer has a hold on oems and their customers like the old days. This is merely Ballmer releasing some hot air.

 

And how about if MS just stops their XP support sooner than that?

 

They can't do that.. legally anyway. They have support contracts they have to fulfill. That would be one class action suit M$ could not defend against. I'm not wishing MS ill will but it took them too long to get something out that businesses are willing to adopt to. I mean the timing for seven could not be at a worse time. Does Ballmer really think that companies are worried that their employees may have a newer OS at home then at work? Is he out of his mind? I mean, at this point companies are fighting for their very survival with layoffs occurring at supernormal rates. Ballmer is a bit islolated from reality. If he really wants to push seven he better be thinking in terms of big discounts.

 

Really . . . .Why not??

95% of all business use is Word, excel, e-mail, and internet.

XP and office 2000 is all that is needed in most cases

 

Why not? Because we don't want to live in 2003 forever, that's why.

 

No, I would probably choose 1967, 1973, 1974, or 1989 rather than 2003 if I had to choose a year to live forever in.

 

As HI DesertNM said, service contracts - which is where Microsoft's real bread and butter is. The retail consumer market really isn't their primary profit-center; which is why all of their retail OSes since XP are basically pithed versions of the full enterprise OS (XP is when they unified the OS structure instead of having two independent OS lines going). Basically, the retail consumer market is mostly flash but not a lot of bang - from what I can tell, they went in this direction because people wanted to be able to take things home from work (sometimes work, sometimes not ) and using a common platform for both retail consumer and enterprise settings made it a lot easier to guarantee compatibility.

 

Yep. XP, Office 2000 or 2007 and whatever software tailored to their business. Will the custom software migrate to Win7? Do they have to repurchase a new license to reinstall the custom software on the new OS?

Not worth it. I can understand why they're not in the hurry to upgrade. Especially if everything is runny fine and dandy. Why spend money on a New OS when you don't need to?

So a business should spend 10-50k or more just so their employees can play with win7? haha