No rush to Vista

Microsoft has been anxious to move the world to its new operating system, Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the world has been less than keen to do its bidding. Many machines with Vista pre-installed can be downgraded back to Windows XP. And customers are taking advantage of this. Also, retail sales of Vista have proved disappointing. Last Thursday, Microsoft bowed to the inevitable and granted a stay of execution to XP.

Part of the problem is that XP just works and Vista doesn’t offer enough relevant new functionality to make it worth the pain of switching. You need a more powerful computer in order to extract similar performance.

If car makers were to adopt this approach, they’d go out of business. Imagine buying a car loaded up with all sorts of interesting, but not strictly required, extra features which added significantly to the car’s weight. You’d be forced to pay more for a bigger engine, better brakes and more fuel. Erm, cough, no thanks.

Microsoft had originally intended to remove XP from its price list at the end of January next year. Now it says it has extended the date to the end of June. And, for the emerging market sawn-off version (not generally available), until the end of June 2010.

Unless you have a burning need for Vista right now, you might prefer to wait until the dust settles. But, if you do decide to take the plunge, beware: Vista comes in five official flavours, ignoring the emerging market’s Starter Edition.

The Microsoft website contains a chart of the publicly available options. Or you may prefer to read an independent perspective such as the one on the ExtremeTech site. (Don’t worry, it’s in more or less plain English.)

When looking at the chart, my instinct is to either avoid the decision or go for the all-embracing version. Perhaps Microsoft hoped for the latter reaction from small businesses but got the former.

David Tebbutt is an award-winning columnist and feature writer who specialises on the subject of using software and technology to increase business productivity. He's an analyst with Freeform Dynamics but, in previous lives, wrote for Director magazine, Real Business and was also editor of Personal Computer World. http://freeformdynamics.com