[LINK] Re: Windows XP versus Vista

[David Goldstein]

A lot of this talk of whether a person living in the third world can use Vista misses a very vital point. It is extremely unlikely there will is the infrastructure to even run a computer let alone have internet access.

And whenever the time comes (does anyone want to have a guess at which decade this may be?) that there is some sort of infrastructure to run a PC/Mac, the cost of memory will probably be so cheap that the cost of the memory required will be superfluous. And by this time Vista will be a distant memory to most of us in the first world.

You can hurl brickbats at Vista all you like, but lets face it, it's more stable and more secure than any previous Microsoft operating system, and does a better job. I've been using Vista for almost one year now on my PC and not one problem, almost no crashes, that's if there were any (I can't recall one) and it's generally an easier system to use. My main problem is getting my head around Office 2007, which people familiar with Macs says is similar in layout to office software on a Mac. And this is because I just don't use Office anywhere near as much as I use to.

On security and stability, Dark Reading has this based on a Microsoft report:
"Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system brought home its first-year security report card today: Vista logged less than half the vulnerabilities that Windows XP did in its first year, according to the Microsoft report."
...
"So what does the Vista report card really mean? 'It proves that it [Vista] is quantitatively more secure, but not that it's quantitatively less risky -- what I call security versus safety,' Mogull says. 'IT managers need to know the overall risk assessment, which includes that data as well as other information sources.'

"Vista underwent more quality assurance and security testing than any other OS, Mogull says, and it paid off. 'The Trustworthy Computing Initiative has resulted in material improvements in the operating system, and other OS vendors should adopt similar practices.'"
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=143979

Then there's Jack Schofield, the best technology tips person I've encountered for the lay person, who in his Ask Jack column in The Guardian said in response to a recent reader question concluded:
"There has been something of a backlash against Vista, but this has also
been true of most new Microsoft operating systems. I'd still recommend
Vista rather than XP, especially if you're taking a five-year view.
Vista is more secure, more reliable and more capable than XP, comes
with better applications (including ubiquitous search), and has a
better user interface. The kernel is based on the hugely successful
Windows Server 2003 code, and with SP1 will be much the same as Windows
Server 2008. It will be a few years before Vista is more common than
XP, but it is not going away."
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/askjack/2007/12/windows_pc_shopping_revisited.html

So whatever anyone says, Vista works extremely well.

Cheers
David

----- Original Message ----
From: "stephen at melbpc.org.au" <stephen at melbpc.org.au>
To: link at anu.edu.au; ivan at itrundle.com
Sent: Wednesday, 23 January, 2008 1:32:09 AM
Subject: Re: [LINK] Re:  Windows XP versus Vista

Ivan writes:

> ..'Has access' is a very loose term .. they need to travel to a place
> with electricity, and a computer, and one with an internet
 connection.

Agree Ivan .. the percentage of the world's population with acces to
 the
Internet is subjective. I was being generous, others say it's around
 20%.
<http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm>, with Windows XP on
 around
+75% of computers.
 <http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=11>

>> to maintain that access, Microsoft (the US) is demanding new
 hardware.
>
> Why does this follow? I don't see the connection ..

Vista wants 40 gig space and a gig ram. How many of the world's
 computers
would you say will run it now, especially in the third world countries?
 And
with world fuel prices and talk of a global recession, how many third
 world
villages could afford to upgrade hardware when XP support stops in 5 
months?

> > Instead, many in Asia and elsewhere
> > will seek free alternatives, for example, Red Flag Linux (China)
> > which is running on 80-95% of all of China's open source machines.
> 
> And if there were only 100 open-source machines in China, that would
> amount to almost 95 machines. Sorry, but this appears to be a
 collection
> of sloppy statistics...

Ivan have a look beyond numbers to the big picture. For me it's a
 matter
of world social justice, and the digital divide.  For shakey third
 world
computers, some virus-ridden, the continuation of XP support for
 several
years at least simply seems a world humanitarian necessity. Do you
 agree?

>From the MS perspective of profits-before-people, I say, not good
 enough!

As well as marketing vertically to us 20% of the world with net access
 etc
why not horizontally, with say, XP RA (Remote Area) at US$20 for a few
 CDs
posted anywhere. An MS XT Beetle/Trabby/Mini for the world and your
 Vista 
Caddy for broadband highways. Come on Microsoft! 20% and no less than
 20%!

Windows XP, if it works, don't break it .. 75% of the world depend on
 it.

> We might well ponder if the computer be made in the east or the west
> (it doesn't matter to me: I'm typing on a machine made in Shanghai),
> but it is inevitable that computers will be designed in places that
> stimulate the most innovation and creative thought, and made in
 places
> that offer the cheapest labour and manufacturing: the two won't
> necessarily be the same, and are unlikely to be so.  iT

Cheers, Ivan
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia
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