End of "All-In-One" Microsoft OS

Ed, I think you are right.

MS Win XP Pro is manageable, if companies and people DO manage it
right. And there are several ways to do it, depending on who you are,
but lots do not do it in an organized manner.

If MS botches the next release, though, there may be a lot of customers
who drop out of the upgrade cycle and that could impact SolidWorks. So
the OS will impact SWks. I doubt MS will flop on VISTA, but they are
going to have to make a danged good compelling case to get a lot of
shops to upgrade, if what I hear is true. Lots of skeptics out there
right now who say "Show me."

Stability so that work can get done reliably is imperitive. I hope
SolidWorks makes the right choices.

Bo

 

Ed, you're correct.

The biggest one for me would be if SW Corp would stop the completely
unethical
practice of charging for maintenance on broken software that is never fixed.

It takes SW Corp a MINIMUM of 4 service packs to have a stable release.

Yet we are still required to pay a fee for software that doesn't
function as advertised.

It would go along way with end users if they abandoned their unrealistic
release schedule
and only release a new version when when they have it where SP4 is now.
Paying customers shouldn't be used as Beta testers.

 

Now there's a thing, someone properly trained to administer Windows.
These people are few and far between. Do you really want the average
joe twiddling in the registry? I just had an incident with a Windows
Certified Techy who didn't know how to approach a simple network
problem without looking it up on the KB.

IMHO all MSoft techies should be trained on Linux first so they have a
good grasp of fundamentals. Then when they get to the GUI easy way they
know what they are doing.

BTW, I showed that techy a Linux setup and the first thing he asked is
whether it had anything like an event log. Little did he know.....

 

What Black Dragon notes below, is what constitutes the biggest problem
with Windows.

The average user is NEVER going to understand how to properly maintain
it and fix it.

The average user is flat out of time to become a competent IT guy.

He has a job to do, and doesn't get paid to learn and become a MS
techie.

That is what is wrong with Windows.

Debate it all you want, but Windows is a bitch to keep running right in
the typical environment by the average CAD user, let alone a less
knowlegable office worker.

Bo

 

Getting pack to the original topic thread:

I think that the "demise of Microsoft" is extremely unlikely and that
the referenced article is more sensational than realistic. An
operating system is a tool to use your computer. And for the average
joe MS does a good job. I use Linux on my webserver and WinXP on my
home desktop. WinXP is a big improvement of 2k, which was an enormous
improvement over 98, and I am running a beta of Vista64 which I think
is an improvement over XP. As long as Vista addresses the major
shortcoming of XP, security, and also increases the stability, I see no
reason why it will not continue to succeed on the desktop.

I would agree that Apple has done very well with the migration to OS-X
and that they will take market share from MS by leveraging the power of
the iLife suite. It addresses end users needs very well. But to think
Vista will not be after the same market is foolish. If MS continues to
copy what Apple does well then they can count on their massive user
base to stay put instead of migrating. Generally it takes a big
difference to get computer-naive people to leave what they know.

To suggest that SolidWorks or any major software company will not
support Vista is silly. Let's be clear that EVERY home PC sold within
a year will be offered with Vista and no other choices. Do you see no
OS or Linux offered as an option from Dell, HP, or Lenovo? Perhaps on
their business lines, but I would bet most of those ship with MS
anyways. Any software maker who does not support Vista will be digging
their own grave. Before you can drop the most dominant operating
system on the planet there will need to be a paradigm shift where you
see a huge chunk of users migrate somewhere else. Even then you would
probably have to support both players awhile until one completely died.
This is why I think that referenced article is silly. Big business
moves slow. You can't take a company the size of say Fidelity which is
completely reliant on MS and applications that run on MS to move to a
completely new operating system and completely new applications in five
to seven years which is the typical lifespan of an MS operating system.


I'm afraid MS is around to stay and as long as they maintain their
enormous userbase, software base, and are "good enough" they will be
around a lot longer. Unless of course there is a huge shift in how we
view and use technology that MS does not foresee and cannot react to
quick enough despite their extraordinary resources.

 

Well, to reitterate, I think my original premise was that I was going
to be much more cautious about believing anything about VISTA until it
had settled down. Notes in the article talked about VISTA going
through an evolutionary set of changes of a modular design until about
2010.

Couple the changes with subscription licensing of the OS, doesn't give
me a lot of confidence that things will really run smooth in the
beginning.

I indeed think it is fair to say I'll be running Win XP Pro for at
least a few more years, because I value my time, more than the concept
of 'keeping up'. I am going to let the Pioneers figure out where all
the problems lie and fix them before I wade in.

Bo

 

I made the cardinal mistake of not taking the time to read the linked
article by assuming it was just an editorial. For those following this
thread it is actually a very good read and is based on research done by
Gartner who I believe provides very good technology analysis. Bo's
points are correct and I misunderstood his original intent because I
didn't read it. For those interested here is the link.

http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsID=6718&pagtype=all

 

I totally agree and have always been quite amazed that the patches have
not been been free. A specific incident with this was 2006 not display
cosmetic threads properly, (BTW cosmetic threads is one of the features
that Inventor really puts SW to shame). I made the request on how to
fix this from tech support but by the time the solution showed up,
(apparently SP4) I was off of subscription and it is still broken.
Good thing it is not a critical feature. Someday after 2007 SP1 or
SP2, (depending on how brave I will be feeling) I guess I'm going to
get cosmetic threads to desplay properly. But, besides SW's unethical
practic in this area, one would hope that SW would have enough pride in
their product that it does not act like some "toy"....

I also think that this kind of thing could be the basis of a fat class
action law suit against SW someday...

I really think that SW needs to come to grips with what does the
"Value" mean in VAR. Providing classes that ultimately arn't very
effective, Selling updates that should have been stood behind by SW
and forcing experienced users to pay for tech support really doesn't
seem like Value to me.

In the case of both MS and SW if they take care of their users, the
users will be loyal!

Ed

 

Well, Concord will tell you that "updates" to fix bugs in your version
of SolidWorks are free. It's just that I've never heard of anyone
actually getting them. You would probably have to document the bug
and file an SPR. Unfortunately it you are not on subscription, I
don't think you have access to the SPR filing mechanism so it's a
catch 22.


===========================================================================
Chris

 

The average Windows user would be even more dangerous administering a
Linux machine.

For example, imagine the nightmare we would have when 100's of millions
of Linux machines are connected to the Internet with non computer savvy
users logged on as root. <shudder>

That's exactly what would happen if Linux took over the desktop market.
Fortunately, we don't have ever have to worry about that happening since
Linux on the desktop isn't gaining any traction and never will.

 

Especially if they used a version of Linux that had a Windows work a
like GUI.

The GUI setup tools that are available in today's Linux are probably
more intuitive than those in Windows.

 

"INTUITIVE" is something, I personally think Microsoft has missed on
too often.

Using the OS and getting things done in MSOffice, sometimes is just
plainly non-intuitive, meaning that the executives in charge of setting
the design requirements do not enforce standards for consistency and
clarity, so that a user can more easily work everything.

That is a culture issue within Microsoft.

That is a reason MS does NOT excite me to want to use their products.

Bo

 

I gave up on the X Windows System when I gave up on Linux a number of
years ago so I really can't comment on that.

The only tool I use to configure my Unix (BSD) systems now is vi.

--
Black Dragon

Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men,
For though the world stood up
And stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again.
-- Bertolt Brecht

 

OS choices tend to have religious overtones, but if one uses 'horses for
courses', Windows & Linux/Unix both have their places.

Has anyone looked at SME server from contribs.org? Very stable, very
easy to administer - even a Windows user can set it up! <G>

Linux on the desktop is a long way from ready, though I have several
engineer clients who are quite happy with Mandrake 10.

Windows on the desktop will still be with us for a looong while - I
still have many clients running Windows 98 SE (with patches - very stable)

To run many odd Windows programs (my daughter's Sesame Street game, for
one), I use VMware - if it crashes/corrupts - reload image - ez . . .

Ivan

 

HP-UX has a nice admin shell/graphics admin interface IIRC.