No need to wait on Vista compatibility Microsoft?

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 06 February 2007 03:00

Opinion and Analysis

According to a notice posted on Apple's Web site, there's a list of Vista compatibility problems with iTunes as long as an average sized arm and it could corrupt your iPod. Vista may not work with your printer, scanner, sound card, network card, graphics card and heavens knows what else. Yet Microsoft says we shouldn't wait to upgrade to its fancy new operating system. Why?

According to Microsoft, more than 5,000 hardware and software products are Vista compatible. That's like saying a piece of cake is 90% fat free instead of saying it contains 10% fat.

Right now, most of us (apologies to Mac and Linux users) are still running Windows XP computers. Our hardware peripherals work, our networks work, our software works, our security systems work (to a point) and we don't require a hardware upgrade. Why on earth, should we spend money on a new operating system, then a heap more on additional hardware, new peripherals, and time getting everything to work together?

According to Microsoft, the answer is "Wow!"

And in fact that's what I said when I walked into my local computer shop to get the prices of boxed copies of Vista and Office 2007. If I want to buy the Ultimate versions of both products, the cost will be AUD$1949. That's without a computer! But, hey, the packaging looks nice.

To be fair, most people will buy a computer with Vista preloaded but there's no getting around that AUD$1198 for Office 2007 Ultimate or the new peripherals you quite possibly need to buy or the software upgrades you may need to wait for.

Here's a thought, although Microsoft might not like it: you've waited five years for Vista already, why not wait another year or two until Microsoft and all their partners has a chance to get their collective acts together?