Unless you’ve been asleep at the wheel, you’re probably aware the Microsoft has finally released two major software packages. These “cash cows” for Microsoft include Windows Vista (upgrade for Windows XP) and Office 2007 (upgrade for Office 2003). These two upgrades will set you back anywhere from $200 to $700 per computer.
Naturally, Leonard already has both installed on his laptop. Thus, I’ve been receiving daily (often unsolicited) feedback on the features and benefits of these two desktop computer mainstays. While he likes the new ribbon bar that appears at the top of the Office applications (Word, Excel, etc.), he constantly murmurs “I can’t see how someone such as John is going to spend the time to re-learn how to use Word…” In addition, he tells me that you shouldn’t consider running Vista with less than 1GB of RAM.
At this point, I don’t see a compelling reason for spending the money or the time for the upgrades. My guess is that once companies are convinced that Vista offers improved security, it will start to catch-on in the business world.
First, I thought I should apologize for my long sprawling comment, but I thought I should make some valid points as a person who is using Office 2007 and Vista for production. If you are interested folks, I advise you read on, otherwise I recommend changing the channel. First, Mr. Sokol, I applaud your excellent summary regarding the money Microsoft will be “robbing” from company piggy banks within the next year. Nevertheless, you did leave out two fat cash cows following the general availability of Windows Vista: Exchange 2007 and Windows Server 2007; I’d estimate both of these products to be elevated to GA a 2(few months) following the GA of Vista. Following that, I concur with your assessment that one needs (at the BARE minimum) one gigabyte of random access memory… I personally believe this is the bare minimum for a person who desires to carry out office administration tasks. One must note that Microsoft ludicrously counsels a buyer of Windows XP to have 128 megabytes of RAM. Yet, one must not be naïve—one must understand that you need 1000 megabytes of RAM to have the aptitude in order to have a polynomial of applications executing. Office 2007 is a rudimentary usability revolution for competing Office products. I, being one that can easily adapt to new software atmospheres, found the new “Ribbon interface” increases the user’s usability and happiness than previous Office versions! “The Ribbon” is designed to be more logical and self-leading path to creating documents more efficiently without all the fine-grain poking. This, readers, by far is the first idea that has become a true reality—first time innovation from Microsoft! Additionally, I see the next generation server system from Microsoft to rock the market: supposedly, once updating you need not to reboot! How appealing to companies? I wonder what the *NIX world will have to say for this? It’s just getting started! Cheers!
* 2(few months) is subjected to interpretation, which implies whatever one’s interpretation of a few moths is, multiplied by 2. The answers both equal, for the reason that Microsoft always, as does any software company, encounter setbacks, and therefore modified deliverables.