With the system requirements for Windows Vista, I don’t see many people rushing to upgrade when it comes out sometime next year. By the way, the term for software that’s promised and keeps being delayed is Vaporware, which is what Vista is currently. Even though it’s in beta, it’s still not a released product that should be used on a production machine.
Now, most computers users at home do not go out and buy a computer every year or two. I know this because in my consulting business I see Windows 98 (Win98) systems that are 6 to 10 years old, and Windows XP (WinXP) systems that are from 5 to 6 years old on a daily basis. As we all know, Vista will not run on those machines, so there goes a sizable chunk of the market. Even my main system will not run Vista and it’s only 3 years old. New computers that are capable will come with it preinstalled and I believe that you will see the really low end $299 to $799 computers rise to $599 to $999 because of the hardware requirements of Vista. Plus, Microsoft will most likely pull the plug on OEM’s from selling WinXP when Vista arrives from vaporware.
As for Enterprise computers, they will definitely not upgrade to Vista for at least a year after it’s release. I know the school district I work for during the day won’t go near it for two years. I can see the headaches now….”My desktop is different”, “I can’t find my Word documents”, “where is My Documents?” If you’ve every went through a transition in OS, then you know what I mean.
I have one laptop at home that can take the Vista upgrade, but I won’t. The hassles of teaching my wife how to use Vista, and tweaking old applications to work is too much for me to think about. As a consultant, I will have to get a new system to use Vista on, so that I don’t lose out on the new business that a new OS creates. At the same time, I need to support any client that upgrades to Vista right away contrary to my advice.
So, reluctantly I will have to fork out at least $1000 for a system with Vista, but what are you going to do?
That’s what I think….What about you?
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