Sustainable IT | Ted Samson | TAG: Save Windows XP

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TAG: Save Windows XP

February 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft faces class-action lawsuit for touting "junk" PCs as "Vista-capable"

Microsoft's attempt to give Vista's popularity a shot in the arm back in 2006 appears to have resulted in a shot in the foot.

As of last Friday, a class-action lawsuit against the company is moving forward, according to The Associated Press. The company is being accused of, during the '06 holiday season, slapping "Windows Vista Capable" stickers on PCs that would only be capable of running the most rudimentary version of the then-forthcoming OS, Vista Home Basic.

The lawsuit was filed last April in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The original suit noted that "the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million and that the size of the class likely exceeds 10,000 people," according to the IDG News Service.

In Friday's ruling, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but whittled down the scope of the original version "to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's 'Vista Capable' labels created artificial demand for computers during the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers that couldn't be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which was released at the end of January 2007," The Associated Press reports.

The Home Basic edition of the OS certainly doesn't deliver the Vista experience users were likely anticipating. For starters, it's incapable of running Aero, Vista's flashy UI. In fact, if you take a look at Microsoft's comparison of the different flavors of Vista, you'll see that this low-end variant of the OS can't do much of anything.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, some of the most damning testimony against its alleged practice comes from within the company itself, according to Computerworld: "An unnamed employee wrote in an e-mail, for example, 'Even a piece of junk will qualify' to be called Windows Vista Capable. And Mike Nash, now a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an email message, 'I PERSONALLY got burnt...Are we seeing this from a lot of customers?...I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine.'"

As of Friday, Microsoft was still reviewing the judge's ruling. Back in April, however, Microsoft spokesperson Jack Evans defended the company's actions saying that Microsoft "conducted a broad effort to educate computer manufacturers, retailers, and consumers about the hardware requirements to run different versions of Windows Vista," according to the IDG News Service.

Whether or not Microsoft successfully fights the lawsuit, the whole case exemplifies to me just how much of a power-hog Vista is compared to XP. Machines released in late 2006, emblazoned with "Windows Vista Capable" stickers, lack the resources to run a useful version of the OS. On top of that, hardware vendors such as HP and Dell found it challenging -- if not impossible -- to build machines that complied with the Energy Star 4.0 specification and ran Vista well (i.e. beyond the bare minimum capabilities of Home Basic).

Beyond the impact this stunt has on customers' bank accounts, it certainly doesn't have eco-friendly ramifications. End-users who bought those machines and still want to run Vista will either have to upgrade their hardware themselves or, more likely, purchase new, more powerful machines. Either approach is pretty wasteful. And I can't help but wonder just how many otherwise useful machines we'll see retired before their time if Microsoft moves forward with its plans to prematurely pull the plug on XP and foist Vista on customers?

Posted by Ted Samson on February 24, 2008 08:21 PM

January 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Linux a greener alternative to a forced Vista move?

If you read my blog yesterday, you noticed my entry about Microsoft's move to retire XP and effectively force Windows shops into a wasteful migration to Vista.

I spelled out a couple of scenarios:
1. Stick with XP and hope you can gather the licenses you need to run your business as it grows, all the while waiting for a better version of Windows to emerge down the road.

2. Cave in and adopt Vista, either taking a headache-inducing piecemeal approach or an all-out expensive (and again, wasteful) mass migration.

Lo, there's another alternative, one that has been pointed out by a some respondents to my previous post: Move to Linux.

For example, this comes from Gostak:

"I am suggesting VMware on Linux with your current crop of XP licenses. Mission-critical stuff that must run on XP is available, meanwhile you can be working on migrating everything to a native Linux environment that will not toss you on your keister in a few years. Further, the one big thing coming down the pike, 64-bit computing, is fully supported with Linux, so you don't have to worry about being able to fully utilize the next generation."

It's an excellent point. Companies concerned both with sustainability and Microsoft's current ploy may indeed find Linux an appealing alternative. Some IT leaders out there have already observed that, among other things, Linux seems to have a "green" advantage over Windows in terms of energy efficiency.

While we're at it, how about adding thin clients to the list of alternatives to moving to Vista-desktop world?

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Keep the ideas coming.

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on January 15, 2008 12:23 PM

January 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Retiring XP means wasteful upgrades to Vista-capable PCs

Every so often, an organization has to refresh some or all of its users' PCs. Perhaps the sales team's laptops are suffering from wear and tear and need replacing. Maybe the finance department requires more powerful desktops to run a newly purchased, resource-intensive, business-critical app.

From a sustainability (that is, green) standpoint, those scenarios are perfectly reasonable -- especially if your organization is recycling the old systems for reuse and even investing in perfectly useful refurbished systems that meet your company's business needs.

On the other hand, refreshing your organizations' fleet of desktops for reasons that have no positive impact on your business whatsoever is clearly wasteful (that is, not green) on many levels: It's a waste of your staff's time and energy. It's a waste of your organization's money. And whether the systems end up refurbished, recycled, or tossed in a landfill, it's a waste of resources.

Thus, I have to get behind InfoWorld's Save XP campaign. (No, there was no interoffice memo requiring me to do so.) If you're not already aware, Microsoft has announced plans to end OEM and shrink-wrapped sales of Windows XP on June 30, 2008. Redmond has committed to continue supporting XP for a few more years. OK, that's great. You can continue running your business on XP comfortably for a while longer. Or can you? Sure, you may have enough XP licenses for your current number of systems, and those licenses can presumably be transferred to new machines when it's time for a refresh. But what happens to a company that happens to be enjoying success and growth and thus has to purchase additional systems for new hires?

That's where the headaches begin. You won't be able to buy new systems loaded with XP, at least not easily. You could scrounge for used machines that have legitimate XP licenses on them -- an approach I certainly advocate if it meets your needs. However, that route might not be ideal for all organizations that want to continue with XP but need the horsepower that more up-to-date PCs offer. In short, as XP licenses become increasingly scarce, banking on acquiring XP licenses to suit your long-term needs becomes a gamble.

The safer route is to do what Microsoft presumably wants you to do: Migrate to Vista -- even if you don't really want to. Given the criticism the OS has garnered for its subpar performance and judging by its sluggish adoption rate, moving to Vista isn't particularly enticing to many organizations.

But again, with XP licenses becoming more difficult to acquire, making the Vista migration becomes appealing -- the way a sprained ankle is preferable to a broken one. What then? Do you take a piecemeal approach of buying systems loaded with Vista as you need them? That sets up you up for the headaches of managing two different desktop environments at once.

Or do you just bite the bullet and make a mass migration to Vista? In the long run, that's probably easiest of all from an IT administration standpoint -- but for many organizations, the migration would require a systems upgrade more or less across the board, thanks to Vista's propensity to hog more resources than XP. Thus, the easiest route is also the most wasteful: Essentially, you're retiring perfectly good machines for more powerful ones, yet you're not reaping a measurable business benefit. In fact, you may just be taking a performance ding. As I said before, that's hardly ideal from sustainability standpoint.

So add me to the list of those opposed to Microsoft's decision to stop selling XP licenses come July and thus force companies to make difficult choices that resolves in headaches, wasteful and unnecessary systems upgrades, or some combination thereof.

Rather, here's what Microsoft really needs to do: Shelve Vista, just like it did Windows ME. Extend XP's stay of execution until Windows 7 comes out. Work on making Windows 7 greener. That is, drop the obese code, which your engineers have publicly acknowledged needs trimming. Kill the system-hogging resources that don't benefit end-users. Dare I suggest Microsoft release a new version of Windows that uses the same system resources as XP does, if not fewer?

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.

Posted by Ted Samson on January 14, 2008 08:53 AM

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