Intel has decided that for its own employees, Windows Vista just won't cut the mustard. According to the New York Times, "Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista."
Ouch. Intel's IT staff arrived at their decision after a lengthy cost-benefit analysis.
Intel has 80,000 employees worldwide, and could be seen as a bellwether for large companies still on the fence about upgrading to Vista. Since Microsoft has been a tight partner with Intel for years, it remains to be seen what kind of pressure Intel will get from top Microsoft management.
In related news, Microsoft released a Windows Vista SP1 "reliability update" that fixes problems with launching large applications, and crashes involving QuickTime.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-26-2008 @ 11:37AM
yakapo said...
I'm curious to know exactly how long the list was under the title "BENEFITS"...
Did it really take that long to figure it out?
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6-26-2008 @ 1:07PM
Kev Orng said...
I don't think it took them that long to figure it out, they've just been hemming and hawing over how they were going to break it to Microsoft.
So now they're like, "umm... so now that Bill's leaving, we, uh, really need to talk"
6-26-2008 @ 2:03PM
Joel said...
If your workers are going to use the exact same applications on Vista that they did on XP to perform the same tasks there's not a very compelling reason to upgrade (though that could also carry over to a few other OSs). On the other hand if you are doing a tasks for which 64-bit computing is desired then you'll find that Vista has much better 64-bit driver support than XP does. But those with the need for 64-bit desktop computing are a specialized crowd.
Was kinda surprised to see this on TUAW though.
6-26-2008 @ 11:48AM
Alan Wilensky said...
Even when running...well....just running, after considerable hammering, Vista is just bloated and troublesome, on all the new and upgraded computers here. Vista has been the number one reason that we started experimenting with Mac purchases - an iMac here, a Mini there. It has been, in contrast to going from XP to Vista, a blessing.
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6-26-2008 @ 11:53AM
Bioretention said...
Even though they are a pain to work with - a very particular company about its branding and identity - it's good to see this exercise of common sense.
http://www.filterra.com
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6-26-2008 @ 11:53AM
Stu J said...
I had to laugh when my wife was buying a new laptop for her work the other month. She opted for one specific HP laptop as it came with a 'downgrade' disc to win XP.
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6-26-2008 @ 12:24PM
KenC said...
I used to work at Intel we got free copies of Office Professional XP and 2003 when I worked there plus they at one point gave us a $1000 credit/gift card to Dell to buy a PC only had to pay the difference if the price was over $1000.
Though now using Vista I am not surprised they said no no.
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6-26-2008 @ 12:30PM
Aron T said...
What a coincidence, I too say 'no' to Vista!
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6-26-2008 @ 12:33PM
NutMac said...
I don't see many compelling reasons to upgrade existing PC running XP to Vista either (at least for corporate users). At the same token, I don't see much downsides for getting Vista with a new PC, provided all the drivers and applications you depend on work.
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6-26-2008 @ 12:33PM
Aron T said...
What a coincidence, I too say 'no' to Vista!
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6-26-2008 @ 1:02PM
samu said...
Can we get an RSS feed for TUAW which only contains Apple-related stories?
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6-26-2008 @ 1:13PM
mentalsticks said...
Agreed. As long as microsoft bashing is part of apple culture, apple culture will [insert negative verb of choice].
6-26-2008 @ 4:40PM
David said...
This is an article concerning Apple. Intel is one of Apple's prime vendors and a stellar technology collaborator.
How in the world can this article be considered Microsoft bashing? This article was nicely written using quotes from highly respected companies, all without any vitriolic comments at all!
6-26-2008 @ 5:01PM
samu said...
That's extremely tenuous. Intel's choice of one version of Windows over another has no bearing on its relationship and collaboration with Apple.
6-26-2008 @ 7:56PM
David said...
I don't see how it's that tenuous at all. This decision by Intel not to upgrade gives a rare glimpse into decision making of a major vendor and technical partner to Apple.
If nothing else it demonstrates that Microsoft does not appear to have a death grip over Intel. If on the other hand we see Intel retract their comments and upgrade to Vista across the board, then just how much should Apple trust Intel with company secrets?
If this does not make sense blame my kitten. He has run across the keyboard 500 times while I was trying to type this resulting in untold amounts of delete key use! :)
6-26-2008 @ 1:09PM
Amirah said...
Haha!! Vista actually sucks!! I just wrote a review on it actually, its not completely biased!! http://macaddict.eu/2008/06/23/windows-vista-review/
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6-26-2008 @ 1:46PM
bobertoq said...
HAhah! Maybe they should use Macs.
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6-26-2008 @ 4:25PM
Tomahawk said...
I also agree on saying no, but there is that one BitLocker feature that is in Vista Business only that could be helpful for some people.
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6-26-2008 @ 10:07PM
Sundhar said...
I think the real bellwether was the private sector.
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6-26-2008 @ 10:59PM
Bootes said...
The advantages to Vista are that it's a little more user friendly and it's prettier. I don't see why a business needs to switch. Especially when hardware can only perform worse or not at all on Vista compared to XP.
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