This article and Gartner report, reeks of double standards. First these guys whip Vista for its lacunae and yet encourage migrating to Vista inspite of the shortcomings. And the reason cited is even more ludicrous - 'you dont want to wait until 2012 for deployment'. I say if the product is below par then punish the seller by not buying it. Until Gartner and its ilk stop recommending incomplete products there is no way Microsofts of this world will mend their ways.

The conclusion of the report should be for buyers to migrate APPLICATIONS by attrition, making sure the replacements are as platform agnostic as possible.

That's the only way they'll reduce the cost and impact the decisions they'll make on platforms in the future.

There advice right now is, go for Vista by default, and hope for luck : That windows 7 is all things for all people.

In the meantime, these same clients are migrating their server rooms from windows and Unix to Linux, including application servers wherever they can because is not the answer for a lot of these needs.

Yet all they say is "don't skip Vista". Who's buying these reports ?

@Olivier: I tried to summarize, in 1,000 words, what these two guys said in an hour and a half. Some of the details were lost, I guess. I'd have written more but I was running for the airport.

The people in that audience are already migrating applications to OS-neutral apps (such as browser-based apps). But these are also the companies that have huge, HUGE investments in legacy apps that simply aren't going to go away soon. Sure, the most exciting development is being done with Web apps (for reasons beyond OSs), but not everything fits in that category. And when you need a desktop app that does something specific (such as lots of vertical apps) you need to buy them in whatever form they come in--which is still generally Windows.

They didn't say that Windows 7 will be great. If anything, they implied that -- unless Microsoft makes some major philosophical shifts -- it'll just be more of the same, and that won't be good for ANYone. On the other hand, skipping Vista entirely is a bad idea (in their view) not because Vista is great but because keeping a large company on WinXP for another 4-5 years (which IS the default choice for many of the people in that room) is a bad idea.

Maybe in the interim of waiting for Windows 7, Microsoft can come out with "Vista-Lite" - "All the function
but only half the calculations!".

I agree with Oliver - the message I take out of this is to concentrate on OS agnostic apps. Having said this - this also implies browser-agnostic apps. This in turn requires me to more carefully look into these "web enabled" stuff and make sure they are not written to a certain browser but to an open spec. Life's not becoming easier....

Microsoft has painted themselves into a corner. Instead of re-writing, they have "mutated" their operating system by adding more functionality on top of an antiquated design. As a result, the Microsoft OS has ever-increasing performance, reliability, and quality issues.

Catch-22... a large amount of software has been written to "behave" in a Microsoft environment and cannot be easily migrated to a different platform. A substantial investment would be required to write a new operating system that would run the older software.

Deja Vu! Reminds me of the IBM mainframe ... IBM has been dealing with the same issues for decades which is why we still have a large number of 20 year-old applications running.

The Gartner guys have a .5 probability as been as accurate as weatherman - who can tell you the weather now standing outside looking south but don't see the tornado behind them.

Mobility / the blackbery is transforming computing and we are within reach of a paradigm shift. All this nonsense of an OS. A mobile thin client with a browser embedded in flash memory, along with a secure VPN capability, tethered with EVDO or WiMax will rendor traditional computing obsolete. This is doable today bit the tipping point is truely ubiquitous high speed connectivity. his is very close and will significantly impact the Microsoft franchise. Hardened thin client front end attached to a virtualized back end takes us back to the centralized computing days which will ofer great operational and productivity benefits.

If I were CIO, I would get away from Fat Clients because their cost is soooooo high! I'd find a way to manage the OS, administer the desktop, save on power, save on budgets - and I would implement Thin Clients! "Thin is In!" Thin Clients are able to address 80% of the typical company. Their advantages include lower cost for stateless hardware (no processor, no OS, no fans), green power consumption (14 watts!), ease of usability, life of product (a client will last for many years and is a throw away if you spill you coffee on it), easily upgrade the enterprise by upgrading the server only, highly secure,lower cost to manage (1 admin can administer 100s of users ie. 1:800 users) and so many more advantages.

Sun's SunRay Thin Clients are best in the market - they are way ahead of their time. I find that people can't get their head around how these work so they don't get consideration as they should. Check it out - very cool. Why Vista? - Thin!

What about the people who don't want to do everything via a browser? Many people want privacy and don't want to be connected at all times. They do not want all their personal data held on servers which can be compromised. Maybe this is the thinking of older generations but it will be relevant for at least the next 10-20 years.

What about people working with huge files and resource intensive apps (video editing)? Do you suggest people will be uploading gigs of video to do conversion/rendering etc? Traditional computing is many years from being obsolete in my opinion. The infrastructure to handle this is in its infancy.

Thin client arguments were valid back in the mainframe days too but the microcomputer revolution still changed the paradigm. There are benefits to both paradigms, since advantages to simplifying administration and lowering end user costs, while compelling, aren't the only factors to consider. Actual end user capabilities are important: sometimes fat clients can perform certain things more effectively than thin clients; sometimes, thin clients provides just the right amount of capability for the lowest cost, etc. I think the best solution takes both factors into account. The real solution is an 'adaptive' IT infrastructure that can provide either fat or thin capabilities 'as needed': 7 course meals before the opera as well as the 10 minute McSkillet before the 8am meeting.