Olympic Committee Chooses XP Over Vista 283
Vinit writes "The popularity of Windows XP is still making things difficult for Vista. Now Vista has again suffered a major setback, with Lenovo (Olympic 2008' official sponsor) installing XP on it's machines to run the Olympic Games' vital PC-related tasks. Vista will only be used in internet lounges set up for athletes to use during the games."
Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
It's Probably Just (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
It Isn't The Popularity of XP (Score:5, Insightful)
Just about every day there are stories of how it can't do something important, or has some kind of security flaw, or won't work with this or that hardware, or needs even more system resources to even run.
What is making XP "popular" is that it doesn't have the problems Vista does. It is no advantage to XP. It's that Vista has so many faults. This isn't unlike the Microsoft even versions of DOS that sucked too.
MS fighting this (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's Probably Just (Score:5, Insightful)
And let's put it this way to the person who posted this story, you do realize that the largest sporting committee in the world choses Windows over Linux.
Doesn't that just make you steam, eh?
It's funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Shades of gray, not black and white.
Also, different people posting means different opinions, etc. There are over a million accounts here now.
Is anybody surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anybody surprised at that? Would you do things differently?
When you have to look after everything from press accreditation to publishing results, from scheduling to putting up the correct names of competitors, and doing it all in a multitude of languages and to the tightest of schedules, what would Windows Vista bring to the party that Windows XP wouldn't?
To use a car analogy, Windows XP has been around the block, been put through its paces, had its engine tuned and is humming nicely, whilst Windows Vista has barely had more than its tyres kicked in the dealer's forecourt. If you were taking a 5,000 mile road trip across a continent, which would you go with?
Why anybody would be surprised at this decision, or even see it as a failing of Windows Vista, is beyond me. If you're going to go with a Microsoft OS, then common sense makes Windows XP the obvious choice.
Nothing new... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's Probably Just (Score:4, Insightful)
The Olympics is all about product placement and sponsorship. It is a place where the elite can toot their money horn of supremacy.
Linux will NEVER be in the Olympics, unless it can pass the physical and drug tests. Even then, I'm sure the sponsors will find a way to disqualify it. Nothing personal, just business.
Re:MS fighting this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Its not so difficult (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd love to moderate this up as "Funny", but I can't.
Major setback (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, really? Complete sensationalist bullshit. Why don't we keep it up and refer to these meaningless events as "the final nail in the coffin" or ones that "spell doom" or "darken the horizon" for Vista. In case you hadn't noticed, the money's all going to the same place.
Did XP suck this bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't remember the transition from 2000 to XP being this difficult. There were a few bumps, the usual driver follies but nothing like the problems plaguing Vista. I don't remember companies going with 2000 because XP caused so many problems.
If memory serves the transition from 2K to XP was actually pleasant...at least by comparison.
Having said that I don't doubt MSFT will get Vista straightened out. My beef with MSFT products is not with the quality (although some of you could argue that quite compellingly). To me it's always been about value. Not whether it works but if it's worth the money you're paying. Right now, for Vista, that answer is "no" for a lot of people.
setback? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It is a natural decision. (Score:1, Insightful)
Just because you don't know what's different in Vista, what changes you need to make, etc, doesn't mean it's the operating systems' fault.
If you spent 4 hours with it, you'd say "This is actually better for our corporate systems. Let's move to Vista instead."
I don't love Microsoft of Windows any more then the next guy, but c'mon, Vista isn't as major of a change as people make it out to be. Maybe they changed all this crap under the hood? Who cares. Most of that doesn't affect anything. It's not like switching from Windows 2000 to Linux or something.
Re:Did XP suck this bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most individuals and smaller companies went directly from Windows 98 or ME to Windows XP.
Re:It's Probably Just (Score:3, Insightful)
I pose the question to Slashdot... What reason would a large organization have at this point to run Vista?
Stability and Marketing are Issues, not Training. (Score:3, Insightful)
No point retraining the support people on Vista when I'm sure all the officials and athletes are still using XP.
No one cares about wasting user time, this is all about marketing and boosting Vista. Lenovo says Vista is too buggy to use and the athletes will have to put up with it anyway [mobilemag.com]:
That's typical of a M$ partner, going along with a marketing push of a system they know is crap. M$ will claim the Olympics are "Vista Powered" and that's all you will see on the idiot box and cnn.com. Their CEO still hopes the upgrade treadmill will spur sales [crn.com], though the overwhelming evidence is that vista is a failure [slashdot.org]. From the CEO Amelio interview:
When M$ dies and this kind of intentional waste ends. Computers will always ship bigger and better but forcing people to toss their old ones because of softare "upgrades" is evil. Free software will soon provide a smaller, but stable and steady market for good hardware that will be much better for the industry.
Re:It is a natural decision. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll not question if Vista is ready for 'prime-time', but I will note that there are dozens, if not hundreds of applications that run on XP but will not run on Vista. That's a real showstopper for any business that depends on these applications.
If all you want to do is email and surf the internet, then Vista is great. For any mission critical use, it isn't. At least that's what corporate America is saying.
Re:Stability and Marketing are Issues, not Trainin (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't regale me on the puniness of the system that you run Linux on - nobody cares, let alone consumers. It's the nature of humans to always want more out of what they buy.
Anyhow, you'd be surprised to learn that Microsoft doesn't actually have complete control of the upgrades market. Hardware manufacturers and games producers have much more say in that when they release bigger, faster, better versions of their particular products. Do you really think that id would have been content to release every version of Quake they made on the Doom engine?
Re:But who does use it...? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is anybody surprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
what would Windows Vista bring to the party that Windows XP wouldn't?
And what does Vista bring to the party, in general, that Windows XP doesn't? Pro-Microsoft people tend to suggest that the benefits of Vista include increased stability, performance, and security-- Many of the "under the hood" changes to Vista were in favor of those aims. Wouldn't the Olympics want those things?
It seems to me that the problem with Vista, in general, is that it doesn't bring anything new to the party that most people will care about.
To use a car analogy, Windows XP has been around the block, been put through its paces, had its engine tuned and is humming nicely, whilst Windows Vista has barely had more than its tyres kicked in the dealer's forecourt. If you were taking a 5,000 mile road trip across a continent, which would you go with?
So you're acknowledging that part of the problem with Vista is that, after a year of being on the market, Vista still isn't reliable and trustworthy?
Here's the thing - (Score:3, Insightful)
Vista is not something we need at the business-level.