Re: OT Vista Blues

I find this discussion interesting, in that it highlights the
differences between the "real" world and the perceptions created by
marketing...

In the "real" world, Microsoft Windows on the desktop in a business
environment hasn't really progressed much after Windows 2000. I
cannot think of a single thing that I can do with Vista that I
couldn't do with Windows 2000. I will agree that Vista *looks* nicer,
but it eats an awful lot more hardware to boot! Most of the
Microsoft new additions that are in Vista as standard are also
available as downloads for Windows 2000 (the dotnet framework being a
key item).

This was highllighted to me a few weeks ago by a friend, who had seen
the new version of Microsoft Office 2007 on the Microsoft web site,
and wanted it - so went out to buy Vista to ensure that they got the
best from the product. I use Office 2007 on Vista, Xp and Windows
2000 and it's identical on each!!! However, users are brainwashed
by marketing that Vista is somehow better or desired.

At the end of the day we (in this group) are generally all busines
people, writing and maintaining business applications. We are
intelligent IT individuals, who should be able to divorce ourselves
from the marketing hype and see the products for what they actually
are. However, there is no reason why we shouldn't embrace and
extend other peoples marketing spend ! Microsoft has done all the
hard work for us, so we should be able to create an expectation of
better applications by using the "written for Vista" marketing angle
(even though we know that the products run the same on older versions
of Windows).

Bottom line, from a technology aspect, we can generally ignore Vista -
it is an irrelevancy in the business world (except for the stupid
additional security hurdles hidden within it!). However, from a Sales
and Marketing perspective, it's a powerful marketing bandwagon to jump
onto. We should just not confuse technology and marketing in the
process!

The same argument occurs with other "marketing" angles. SAAS
(software as a service) seems to be a marketing trend at the mo...
Definition of what this means varies, but again, we can embrace this
without changing the technology too much (even green screen character
applications can be hosted!).

Generally (I am speaking generally, and I know that there are many
exceptions!) , as Multivalue software developers, we seem to be inable
to keep up with the marketing aspects of our technology and
applications.

I'll give you an example of another vendor in another marketplace who
knows how to do this - Oracle. There is a standard (apparently!)
for XML databases called XML:DB. Oracle have a product called Oracle
XML DB which is part of Oracle 11g. Interestingly enough, amongst all
the blurb about open standards, the one standard that it doesn't seem
to support is the XML:DB standard - though the marketing hype around
the product clearly is designed to suggest it does!

One interesting trend though - to look from the other end of the
telescope - is that is appears that the consumer is getting cleverer
and is able to see through some of the hype - this can be seen in the
relatively low uptake for Vista - a product which has been around for
18 months now and would be expected to be seen as an absolute *must*
by historical Microsoft yardsticks at this stage. Microsoft seem to
recognise this trend, and have broadened more into other applications
in recent years reducing their reliance on the core OS and Office
applications.

I would conclude, ignore Vista at your peril ! but... this is really
something for the marketing people and not so much on the technology
people (though make sure your product does actually run on Vista!!).

Just my 2 cents worth.

Simon
.

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