Vista Migration Scaring Off IT Pros

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2219153,00.asp

By Deborah Perelman
November 19, 2007

When weighing the difficulties involved in a Vista upgrade, techies fail to
see its value.

Now more than a year out of the business gate, Microsoft's Vista operating
system is having trouble making friends in the exact place it needs them the
most-the IT department.

When asked, rather than express excitement over Vista's promised better
security, networking features and fancy GUI, IT professionals admit
trepidation over the looming upgrade and the trouble it will cause.

"Personally, I'm dreading the amount of time it'll take to upgrade each
machine from a hardware standpoint-adding memory or whatever-and from an
operating system upgrade. It's just time consuming," Howard Graylin, a
senior technical analyst in Ridgeland, Miss., told eWEEK.

But technology professionals worry about more than the time it will take to
actually migrate, but the inevitable difficulties resulting from an, at
times, painfully slow user learning curve.

"I also dread the 'why doesn't it work like this anymore?' questions we'll
get from users. My standard answer is, 'I don't know. Let me ask Bill
[Gates] the next time we have lunch and I'll get back to you.' Well, the
second sentence is said silently," jokes Graylin. "I need to keep my job."

Graylin's fears are echoed in a study to be released Nov. 19 in which 90
percent of IT professionals reported that they had concerns about migrating
to Vista.

"One thing that we've heard a lot is that there is a big training impact.
The shift from Windows 98 to 2000 and then to XP were smoother because the
interfaces were more similar," Rob Meinhardt, CEO of KACE, a provider of
systems management appliances which commissioned King Research to perform
the study.

The study also underscored how little enterprise market penetration Vista
had so far: 48 percent of respondents said that they had not deployed Vista
in any way and 39 percent had only done so on a few test machines. Less than
1 percent of respondents had fully migrated their organizations over to
Vista-the majority of these respondents were from very small companies.

I think that IT management is uncertain about what issues might arise from
running Vista, from training costs to consider to making sure applications
are compatible before moving them over. It's a big testing challenge," said
Meinhardt.

IT departments are also put off by the costs associated with Vista's
performance load and memory requirements, and for many, it is enough to keep
them from upgrading altogether, or at least putting it off for another year.

"My company was scheduled to migrate to Vista by the end of '07, but that
was before we realized we'd have to upgrade or replace 95 percent of our
existing hardware. That's a huge expense especially when you consider that
XP is a stable platform. We've pushed the target date out until the end of
'08, but I'm not entirely sure we'll upgrade before then," said Graylin.

Though 44 percent of respondents in the King Research study said they have
considered deploying non-Windows operating systems to avoid the Vista
migration, the vast majority see a Vista migration as inevitable. Still,
most will be waiting until after the scheduled January 2008 Vista SP1
release.

"Most people don't want to be early adopters. There are going to be bugs,
and it takes a certain amount of time for any new release to stabilize,"
said Meinhardt.

Nevertheless, "there is no question that IT is dreading this process. It's
one thing when a system is clearly adding value, but it's not clear yet. IT
would rather be working on projects that have a bigger impact on their
businesses."

"Mr. Vista" <Mr. > wrote in message
news:%...
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2219153,00.asp
>

<snipped>

I work in IT, and it's going to be the same thing that happened with IT when
they came from Windows DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.x to Win 9'x, Win 9'x to Win
NT 4.0, NT 4.0 to Win 2K, Win 2k to Win XP and now it's Vista. They are
going to go kicking and screaming, but the are going to go Vista.

I contracted in a company recently that's using XP pro for its workstations.
They hired a new VP of IT that likes Vista and told them to install Vista on
his computer. You think they are not going to Vista company wide at some
point?

An example of the writers bias:
"we'd have to upgrade or replace 95 percent of our existing hardware"
That is an extremely high % and far from typical.
Like many organizations, perhaps they run hardware as long as possible
making this hardware extremely old.
They may also have proprietary hardware and if so, there will probably
be problems whenever any operating system is changed, not just windows
Vista.
However the facts conveniently missing from the article probably tell
more than the meager information supplied.
Or maybe the IT department is incompetent and skews the facts to keep
their job easier with no change.

That is very similar to what was said 6 years ago at the release of
Windows XP as well as operating systems before that.
Like many articles, you can get it to sound however you want by cherry
picking the facts that support your views.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org


"Mr. Vista" <Mr. > wrote in message
news:%...
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2219153,00.asp
>
> By Deborah Perelman
> November 19, 2007
>
> When weighing the difficulties involved in a Vista upgrade, techies
> fail to see its value.
>
> Now more than a year out of the business gate, Microsoft's Vista
> operating system is having trouble making friends in the exact place
> it needs them the most-the IT department.
>
> When asked, rather than express excitement over Vista's promised
> better security, networking features and fancy GUI, IT professionals
> admit trepidation over the looming upgrade and the trouble it will
> cause.
>
> "Personally, I'm dreading the amount of time it'll take to upgrade
> each machine from a hardware standpoint-adding memory or
> whatever-and from an operating system upgrade. It's just time
> consuming," Howard Graylin, a senior technical analyst in Ridgeland,
> Miss., told eWEEK.
>
> But technology professionals worry about more than the time it will
> take to actually migrate, but the inevitable difficulties resulting
> from an, at times, painfully slow user learning curve.
>
> "I also dread the 'why doesn't it work like this anymore?' questions
> we'll get from users. My standard answer is, 'I don't know. Let me
> ask Bill [Gates] the next time we have lunch and I'll get back to
> you.' Well, the second sentence is said silently," jokes Graylin. "I
> need to keep my job."
>
> Graylin's fears are echoed in a study to be released Nov. 19 in
> which 90 percent of IT professionals reported that they had concerns
> about migrating to Vista.
>
> "One thing that we've heard a lot is that there is a big training
> impact. The shift from Windows 98 to 2000 and then to XP were
> smoother because the interfaces were more similar," Rob Meinhardt,
> CEO of KACE, a provider of systems management appliances which
> commissioned King Research to perform the study.
>
> The study also underscored how little enterprise market penetration
> Vista had so far: 48 percent of respondents said that they had not
> deployed Vista in any way and 39 percent had only done so on a few
> test machines. Less than 1 percent of respondents had fully migrated
> their organizations over to Vista-the majority of these respondents
> were from very small companies.
>
> I think that IT management is uncertain about what issues might
> arise from running Vista, from training costs to consider to making
> sure applications are compatible before moving them over. It's a big
> testing challenge," said Meinhardt.
>
> IT departments are also put off by the costs associated with Vista's
> performance load and memory requirements, and for many, it is enough
> to keep them from upgrading altogether, or at least putting it off
> for another year.
>
> "My company was scheduled to migrate to Vista by the end of '07, but
> that was before we realized we'd have to upgrade or replace 95
> percent of our existing hardware. That's a huge expense especially
> when you consider that XP is a stable platform. We've pushed the
> target date out until the end of '08, but I'm not entirely sure
> we'll upgrade before then," said Graylin.
>
> Though 44 percent of respondents in the King Research study said
> they have considered deploying non-Windows operating systems to
> avoid the Vista migration, the vast majority see a Vista migration
> as inevitable. Still, most will be waiting until after the scheduled
> January 2008 Vista SP1 release.
>
> "Most people don't want to be early adopters. There are going to be
> bugs, and it takes a certain amount of time for any new release to
> stabilize," said Meinhardt.
>
> Nevertheless, "there is no question that IT is dreading this
> process. It's one thing when a system is clearly adding value, but
> it's not clear yet. IT would rather be working on projects that have
> a bigger impact on their businesses."
>
>

> An example of the writers bias:
> "we'd have to upgrade or replace 95 percent of our existing hardware"
> That is an extremely high % and far from typical
....
> Like many articles, you can get it to sound however you want by cherry
> picking the facts that support your views.
>

Interesting that you so often demand to have
the documenting links that support a point, yet in
this case you're happy to just rebut the hearsay
article. EWeek's article was, as you noted, half-assed.
They didn't even bother to link to their sources.

But I'm sure that, rigorous intellectual that you are,
you really want to understand the whole issue fully.
So here are the articles that actually quote the studies -

----------------------
"Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they
have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than
half said they have no plans to deploy Vista."

http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
ndex.cfm?newsid=6258

http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
ndex.cfm?newsid=6234
--------------------

Though frankly, I'm not sure what to make of the
actual studies myself. I don't have any reason to
assume that Forrester has their act together and
can't be bought. "Studies" seem to increasingly be
just a form of advertising for all parties involved.
On the other hand, without them we'd have nothing
to go on but Microsoft's wildly skewed propaganda.

"mayayana" <> wrote in message
news:...
>> An example of the writers bias:
>> "we'd have to upgrade or replace 95 percent of our existing hardware"
>> That is an extremely high % and far from typical
> ...
>> Like many articles, you can get it to sound however you want by cherry
>> picking the facts that support your views.
>>
>
> Interesting that you so often demand to have
> the documenting links that support a point, yet in
> this case you're happy to just rebut the hearsay
> article. EWeek's article was, as you noted, half-assed.
> They didn't even bother to link to their sources.
>
> But I'm sure that, rigorous intellectual that you are,
> you really want to understand the whole issue fully.
> So here are the articles that actually quote the studies -
>
> ----------------------
> "Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they
> have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than
> half said they have no plans to deploy Vista."
>
> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
> ndex.cfm?newsid=6258
>
> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
> ndex.cfm?newsid=6234
> --------------------
>
> Though frankly, I'm not sure what to make of the
> actual studies myself. I don't have any reason to
> assume that Forrester has their act together and
> can't be bought. "Studies" seem to increasingly be
> just a form of advertising for all parties involved.
> On the other hand, without them we'd have nothing
> to go on but Microsoft's wildly skewed propaganda.
>

What you have is other IT professionals that know the deal. And what is
being talked about now and what one will not do won't hold true a year
from now, when it comes to moving to a new O/S or platform. What's happening
now and what will happen a year from now or in the future are two different
things.

I don't even have to read the links you have posted, because of the words
*we don't have any plans* and *we are concerned*. Yeah right and the cow
jumped over the Moon too. IT is always concerned when something new is
coming into play, but it quickly fades and I mean quickly. What IT means is
*we don't have any plans at this time*. We're going to wait a little bit
until things are ironed out and settled down, and then we'll be on board,
just like they have done in the past.

I have seen this a lot over the years in IT come into play time and time
again about what someone will say he or she won't do concerning this. Only
for them to turn around and do it when the time is right.

It is the same song and dance that's been going on since the mid 1990(s)
with the MS O/S platforms. IT was saying back in 1999 or 2000 that IT
wouldn't go to .NET either.

What's happening now is that IT is all over the top of .NET slobbering all
over the place to get .Net solutions implemented on the MS platform. IT has
done this all the way from VB 3, 4, 5, VS 6, VS 2000, 2003, 2005 and soon
to be out VS 2008. IT and companies have to keep pace with new technology
to be viable.

>I don't have any reason to
> assume that Forrester has their act together and
> can't be bought.

True but less likely. Their self-interest is to make reports as creditable
and reputable as possible so companies and executives will pay top dollars
for it. They don't rely on a vendor's products nor skills for making a
living.


"mayayana" <> wrote in message
news:...
>> An example of the writers bias:
>> "we'd have to upgrade or replace 95 percent of our existing hardware"
>> That is an extremely high % and far from typical
> ...
>> Like many articles, you can get it to sound however you want by cherry
>> picking the facts that support your views.
>>
>
> Interesting that you so often demand to have
> the documenting links that support a point, yet in
> this case you're happy to just rebut the hearsay
> article. EWeek's article was, as you noted, half-assed.
> They didn't even bother to link to their sources.
>
> But I'm sure that, rigorous intellectual that you are,
> you really want to understand the whole issue fully.
> So here are the articles that actually quote the studies -
>
> ----------------------
> "Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they
> have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than
> half said they have no plans to deploy Vista."
>
> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
> ndex.cfm?newsid=6258
>
> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
> ndex.cfm?newsid=6234
> --------------------
>
> Though frankly, I'm not sure what to make of the
> actual studies myself. I don't have any reason to
> assume that Forrester has their act together and
> can't be bought. "Studies" seem to increasingly be
> just a form of advertising for all parties involved.
> On the other hand, without them we'd have nothing
> to go on but Microsoft's wildly skewed propaganda.
>
>
>
>
>

I should have also added, reputable research firms don't take ads.


"xfile" <> wrote in message
news:...
> >I don't have any reason to
>> assume that Forrester has their act together and
>> can't be bought.
>
> True but less likely. Their self-interest is to make reports as
> creditable and reputable as possible so companies and executives will pay
> top dollars for it. They don't rely on a vendor's products nor skills for
> making a living.
>
>
> "mayayana" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>>> An example of the writers bias:
>>> "we'd have to upgrade or replace 95 percent of our existing hardware"
>>> That is an extremely high % and far from typical
>> ...
>>> Like many articles, you can get it to sound however you want by cherry
>>> picking the facts that support your views.
>>>
>>
>> Interesting that you so often demand to have
>> the documenting links that support a point, yet in
>> this case you're happy to just rebut the hearsay
>> article. EWeek's article was, as you noted, half-assed.
>> They didn't even bother to link to their sources.
>>
>> But I'm sure that, rigorous intellectual that you are,
>> you really want to understand the whole issue fully.
>> So here are the articles that actually quote the studies -
>>
>> ----------------------
>> "Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they
>> have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than
>> half said they have no plans to deploy Vista."
>>
>> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
>> ndex.cfm?newsid=6258
>>
>> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
>> ndex.cfm?newsid=6234
>> --------------------
>>
>> Though frankly, I'm not sure what to make of the
>> actual studies myself. I don't have any reason to
>> assume that Forrester has their act together and
>> can't be bought. "Studies" seem to increasingly be
>> just a form of advertising for all parties involved.
>> On the other hand, without them we'd have nothing
>> to go on but Microsoft's wildly skewed propaganda.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Statistics can very often be manipulated to mean whatever suits a
specific agenda.
Giving %s without any supporting documentation leaves credibility wide
open.
The total number people surveyed, what organizations are represented.
how many computers represented and more are needed before someone can
come to any viable conclusion.
Leaving off some of those details or simply not collecting them leaves
more room to doubt the credibility.

961 is a relatively small number and may not be sufficient to be
representative of the group especially without more details of them,
their computers and organizations.

Anyone should "have concerns about migrating" to another operating
system.
Among those concerns is support for essential hardware and software.
But concerns do not necessarily translate to problems.
It is simply prudent to verify a new product meets your needs before
changing.
This applies to any type of product, not just computers and operating
systems.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org


"mayayana" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Interesting that you so often demand to have
> the documenting links that support a point, yet in
> this case you're happy to just rebut the hearsay
> article. EWeek's article was, as you noted, half-assed.
> They didn't even bother to link to their sources.
>
> But I'm sure that, rigorous intellectual that you are,
> you really want to understand the whole issue fully.
> So here are the articles that actually quote the studies -
>
> ----------------------
> "Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they
> have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than
> half said they have no plans to deploy Vista."
>
> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
> ndex.cfm?newsid=6258
>
> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
> ndex.cfm?newsid=6234
> --------------------
>
> Though frankly, I'm not sure what to make of the
> actual studies myself. I don't have any reason to
> assume that Forrester has their act together and
> can't be bought. "Studies" seem to increasingly be
> just a form of advertising for all parties involved.
> On the other hand, without them we'd have nothing
> to go on but Microsoft's wildly skewed propaganda.
>
>
>
>
>

> The total number people surveyed, what organizations are represented. how
> many computers represented and more are needed before someone can come to
> any viable conclusion.
> Leaving off some of those details or simply not collecting them leaves
> more room to doubt the credibility.

Hi,

Not speaking for eWeek, but the above information are and will be included
in each and every report from Forrester, Gartner, and so on.

Press, such as eWeek, can only cite part of results and cannot print the
entire report. I think that it is unwise to question reports from those
firms. If one wishes to read it, certainly can buy it for a single copy or
on subscriptions base.

And as far as for sampling, quantity has nothing to do with quality. Gallop
has been very accurate on predicting US presidential elections with very
small samples, just for example. And you often pointed out, using this
newsgroup is not a good sample for the overall user experience, which I
totally agree. Why you said that? I guess because sample quality isn't
representative despite the number of visitors?

However, it should be noted that each and every research could go wrong and
that falls to the random errors. More importantly is that each is based on
certain conditions and when conditions changed, results will also change.

People oftentimes will focus on those conditions and try to change so the
results would become more favorable, instead of questioning the integrity
and creditability of those results. After all, their reputations and
revenues are not based on free blogs and ads, and whether one likes it or
not, they are highly respected by senior executives including those in MS.



"Jupiter Jones [MVP]" <> wrote in message
news:%...
> Statistics can very often be manipulated to mean whatever suits a specific
> agenda.
> Giving %s without any supporting documentation leaves credibility wide
> open.
> The total number people surveyed, what organizations are represented. how
> many computers represented and more are needed before someone can come to
> any viable conclusion.
> Leaving off some of those details or simply not collecting them leaves
> more room to doubt the credibility.
>
> 961 is a relatively small number and may not be sufficient to be
> representative of the group especially without more details of them, their
> computers and organizations.
>
> Anyone should "have concerns about migrating" to another operating system.
> Among those concerns is support for essential hardware and software.
> But concerns do not necessarily translate to problems.
> It is simply prudent to verify a new product meets your needs before
> changing.
> This applies to any type of product, not just computers and operating
> systems.
>
> --
> Jupiter Jones [MVP]
> http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
> http://www.dts-l.org
>
>
> "mayayana" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Interesting that you so often demand to have
>> the documenting links that support a point, yet in
>> this case you're happy to just rebut the hearsay
>> article. EWeek's article was, as you noted, half-assed.
>> They didn't even bother to link to their sources.
>>
>> But I'm sure that, rigorous intellectual that you are,
>> you really want to understand the whole issue fully.
>> So here are the articles that actually quote the studies -
>>
>> ----------------------
>> "Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they
>> have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than
>> half said they have no plans to deploy Vista."
>>
>> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
>> ndex.cfm?newsid=6258
>>
>> http://www.computerworlduk.com/manag...cations/news/i
>> ndex.cfm?newsid=6234
>> --------------------
>>
>> Though frankly, I'm not sure what to make of the
>> actual studies myself. I don't have any reason to
>> assume that Forrester has their act together and
>> can't be bought. "Studies" seem to increasingly be
>> just a form of advertising for all parties involved.
>> On the other hand, without them we'd have nothing
>> to go on but Microsoft's wildly skewed propaganda.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

In article <>,
Mr. Arnold <MR. > wrote:
>
>"Mr. Vista" <Mr. > wrote in message
>news:%...
>> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2219153,00.asp
>>
>
><snipped>
>
>I work in IT, and it's going to be the same thing that happened with IT when
>they came from Windows DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.x to Win 9'x, Win 9'x to Win
>NT 4.0, NT 4.0 to Win 2K, Win 2k to Win XP and now it's Vista. They are
>going to go kicking and screaming, but the are going to go Vista.
>

Windows 3.11 to 95 was utterly painless. I needed few if any hardware
changes and got very few help desk calls because of it. Likewise 95 to
98 went smoothly. I had more problems moving people to 2000 because it
was more like NT than it was like 95/98 and needed more hardware. (Very
few desktop users ran NT.) We didn't upgrade to XP but simply run both
platforms side by side to this day (in fact we have Apple users and one guy
using... OS/2! Yes, really.)

The big problem with moving to Vista is that because of that
misconstructed DRM crap it really does require large hardware upgrades
and lots of things don't work on it. Eventually I'll have to start because
of the MS monopoly on the desktop, but here's an example of why I dread it
more than I dreaded rewriting VAX Basic programs in Cobol.

One of the managers told his administrative assistant to download
and install the Office 2007 trial. It was so very different than the 2003
she was used to that she couldn't work, and it took me 2 hours to get the
machine back the way it was. I'm imagining that * 10,000...only there's
no going back...