Jun 19, 2005
Microsoft’s “recurring problem”
CNet:
Use of Microsoft Windows XP has grown inside corporations, but a new study shows that nearly half of business PCs are still running the older Windows 2000.
The study, released Tuesday by AssetMetrix, underscores a recurring problem for Microsoft: While the company spends billions of dollars developing new versions of Windows and its Office desktop software, many customers are slow to give up older versions of software that’s paid for and works just fine.
Why give up a perfectly good OS (2000) to invest a lot of money on a new one that doesn’t give that many additional benefits? Windows 2000 is still a good OS for many businesses and homes. What does XP provide? A flashier interface, some more drivers and plug-and-play! That doesn’t constitute enough benefits to justify an upgrade, and I’m not sure Longhorn will either, especially since it’s likely to come with a hefty increase in hardware requirements. Another problem for Microsoft is that they did such a darn good job with 2000 in terms of stability and performance (it runs really well on relatively old hardware) that businesses can run it without spending money on expensive new hardware. It’s in my experience more stable than XP and you can run pretty much all new software so again - why upgrade? Longhorn better offer something fantastic in terms of stability, security, and usability, and run on modest hardware for it to really attract upgraders.