Forced march
- Article 19 of 77
- Information Age, October 2001
The launch of Windows XP once again shows how Microsoft – in common with a host of other software suppliers – expects customers to upgrade to new releases of its software without question. Is it wrong to do so?
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No one buys a car and expects to be told, three years down the line, that if they want to keep using it, they need to pay for it again. Nor do they expect to have to buy a new car to maintain compatibility with other cars, or to be able to use the roads. Yet many software vendors seem to expect customers to continue paying for something they already own or to buy additional pieces of software they do not need.
Microsoft, with its desktop monopoly on operating systems and office productivity suites, is the company most often accused of forcing customers to buy products they do not want, although other software suppliers also enforce upgrades on customers. But, now that Microsoft has a new operating system and new version of Office – Windows XP and Office XP – can companies refuse to upgrade?
For the consumer, the case for upgrading to XP is clear: for a few pounds more, they can enjoy the stability of Windows NT 2000 while maintaining most of the compatibility with the older programs and hardware of Windows 95.
But what is in it for the corporate customer, who is already using Windows NT or 2000?
“There are three areas where it makes a difference,” argues Microsoft's product manager for Windows XP, Neil Laver. “Ease of use and management, compatibility and collaboration.” XP, Laver claims, has far more backwards compatibility with earlier DOS and Windows programs than its predecessor. It also has a built-in firewall, the ability to restore an entire PC back to previous settings, and driver and application signing to prevent unapproved software or hardware drivers being installed. Meanwhile, mobile users will be able to access their desktops over networks or the Internet.
But top of the list for corporates is the improved Windows messaging system for collaboration, which includes communications support for voice and video over IP, and applications sharing. “Features involving working together are the main thing,” agrees John Handby, chief executive of CIO Connect, a forum for CIOs. “But customers are becoming increasingly restrained. We've got Windows 2000, which has pretty good stability. The onus is on Microsoft to show a number of things are really valuable. It needs killer apps.”
The Gartner Group's research backs up Handby. Although “Windows XP is Microsoft's latest and, likely, best OS,” argues Michael Silver, of the group's end-user division, “enterprises already upgrading to Windows 2000 should continue the process.” Companies that were planning to migrate to Windows 2000 in 2002 should, however, consider skipping 2000 and move to XP instead.
XP does have reasonably high hardware requirements: 64 megabits (MB) of RAM and a Pentium III processor are the minimum a PC needs to run the operating system. A PC running Windows 2000 will almost certainly have at least that configuration, but one running 95 or 98 is unlikely to have the speed or power to run the new operating system: an upgrade to XP will almost certainly mean a new PC in those cases. But, while XP may be good, is it really that good?
Decisions, decisions...
Microsoft faces a dilemma: how does it encourage people to upgrade to the new operating system when the only customers who will really benefit will have computers that are too old to run it? Like Oracle, IBM and other vendors, Microsoft has relied on the phasing out of support for older products to encourage upgrades; and many corporates feel the need for support for these vendors' core products, so upgrade in order to retain that.
And file formats also undergo regular changes: With each version of Office come a few new tweaks to the Word and Excel file formats. Companies with an earlier version find it hard to use the files they receive from people using the new version, and Microsoft's competitors find it hard to include translators that will convert documents into their own suites' formats, making their packages less attractive to companies looking for an alternative to Microsoft.
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