Something to consider for those thinking about Windows Vista

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut [...] a_cost.txt

It's an interesting read. Sounds a bit SODish, but then again it doesn't sound too far from Microsoft's thinking either. Some of you may have already seen it or something similar.

Thoughts?

Simple really..

That's pretty much how I summed it up. There's a lot of instances where the author took some really extreme views.

As the author points out, Linux will be affected by this as well. I see it more in the area of driver support of newer hardware as it will be more difficult and take longer to write support as they could be more focused on supporting Vista and it's DRM BS. This could lead to some companies dropping Linux support as they don't have the resources to continue it. Albeit that would mostly be for the smaller companies.

I'm not too concerned about it as I didn't plan on switching to Vista anytime soon. I really only use Windows for gaming and Linux for everything else. DX10 based games won't be mainstream for at least another year or so and even then those games will most likely have DX9 paths. By then Vista SP12 will probably have been released to fix all the issues people will "find".

The bottom line however does seem inevitable. The end-user is going to be picking up the tab on this (as they always have) but the tab is going to get a bit bigger (as usual). However, I don't think the gains will be justified by the extra cost.

Linux is great where its great.. But I'll admit it has plenty of shortcomings for the average home desktop. I'm not a blind OS advocate.

I saw Linux take a huge chunk of the UNIX market. SCO really could not compete in the x86 stakes hence the hissy fit. Many other UNIX vendors lost out as people realised that propriatory hardware was always going to carry a premium. The x86 hardware got 'good enough' as Windows NT came along. Netware had helped here although probably not as much. It just made sense if you wanted a cheep departmental web server and you were an ex Unix house.

I wonder if the DRM shenanigans might actually work to aid Linux. Anoobis makes a very valid point about specialist drivers but if the hardware remains reasonably open this might be less of an issue. I know DVD John is primed.

Vista will gain share on new HW sales alone. I cant see it taking the corporate world by storm. I still work with a mix of NT4 Win2K machines and this is typical of many workplaces. The home is a different matter. But then the consumer is a fickle creature, you just don't know how it will play out. It could yet be the time for apple to strike... Stranger things have happened.

IBM is more likely to have a Linux version than many vendors. The fact that your company continues to tie itself to closed standards is great news to Microsoft I'm sure. VPN's are quite possible under linux without the need for expensive 3rd party software. But as you pointed out earlier its knowing how to do it.. Something beyond the average Windows admin..

I've at no point said that Linux is going to take over the world or replace windows as the corporate desktop overnight. My feeling is that Vista will not give business a reason to move. The new Office UI will be a training nightmare to many organisations. When Win2k does the job why change?

In terms of what your companies situation I don't know how or if Linux would fit. One thing I will wager though is that there are at least a couple of devices on your network running Linux already.