Windows 7 hype that XP users will shun

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 11 February 2009 14:36

IT Industry - Market

Now that's an interesting viewpoint. Pit XP against Vista or Windows 7 beta on current generation hardware and it will beat them black and blue for performance.

But bloggers and experts alike will justify that by telling you it's because Vista and Windows 7 are able to take advantage of the hardware and do all these exotic things in the background. All XP can do with the new hardware is use it to....run faster!

Then there are new OS advocates who remind us of all the new features that XP users are missing out on by sticking with the dinosaurOS. Which features are those exactly? Gadgets? Aero? Dream Scene? OK you got us there - we really feel deprived but we'll take some small consolation in the fact that our applications run faster.

One report I read talked about how XP slayed Vista and Windows 7 in a head to head benchmarks battle. However, the reviewer predicted that the gap would narrow when 8-core, 16-core and 32-core processors come on the market. When that day comes, we may well be arguing about the merits of Windows 9 versus Windows 8.

The big kick in the behind for Microsoft has been the Enterprise space. It's relatively easy to force consumers onto a new OS platform with preloaded hardware - even though netbooks have thrown a spanner in the works - but not so with business users.

The business market in the past two years since the release of Vista has been a disaster for Microsoft. Only about 10% of businesses have made the switch to Vista. And why would they? They're looking to reduce costs and get the most bang for their bucks not fancy interfaces.

XP runs faster on cheaper hardware, it is compatible with the widest range of software and hardware, it's stable and it's familiar. Try telling a business user that he or she should switch to Vista or Windows 7 because these operating systems are made for the current generation of hardware.

In time Windows 7 may replace XP - it probably will. However, until such time as Windows 7 really outperforms its illustrious ancestor in all the areas where it really counts, this is one user, among many others, that refuses to buy into the hype.