Sneering IT gits will push Microsoft Vista your way

WHAT'S the big deal with Vista? Do you want it? Do you need it? Do you care and more importantly, do you have a choice? What does it mean for the quality of your working life? Will it make your old PC more efficient or will it kill it stone dead? Will it be more secure than Microsoft Swiss Cheese, sorry, I mean XP, or will it require lots of patches, lots of scare-mongering and the odd massive Service Pack to help keep those mean old hackery types at bay and allow you sleep safe at night? The bottom line is that Microsoft is working on a new operating system. It's called Vista. It's big, fat, feature-packed, delayed and, at the end of the day, most of us will have no choice about whether we use it or not. So what's all the fuss?

I tend not to worry about things I have no control over. It's not as easy as it sounds and, generally, it takes decades of worrying over things I have no control over to master it. I like to think I have moved beyond the Kung Fu ‘Grasshopper' stage of my training an onto the path that will eventually lead me to being fat, bald and round like some wisdom-filled Buddha, with a really long white beard that I can tuck into my abused belt. Now remember, I said most people will have no choice, so those of you with a choice keep your hair on before flaming me about Linux, XP, Mac etc. For the vast majority of working folk, the decision will be made for them by the IT department, those shadowy figures who are either viewed as:

A. Knights in shining armour, wielding tools imbued with immense, mystical power and brains to match to solve your every little IT problem, faster than a speeding bullet - OR…

B. Those sneering little gits in the basement, wielding screwdrivers of spite and hoarding their knowledge so that it's usually quicker and, less traumatic, to take IT night-classes and solve the problem yourself than call them out.

There are probably more options but if Vista is chosen by the IT department then you will be using it and that's that. Vista, like its predecessors will take time to become the dominant OS in businesses. After all, why should any business risk their business to a new OS that will require retraining of both IT staff and regular folk, not to mention software integration issues, new usage policies, lack of third-party software, investment in new, faster and more expensive PCs with higher res monitors, and risking their business to a shiny new OS the hacking and virus community have been waiting years to get a crack at? No, far better to stay with the Band-Aid covered, MS Swiss Cheese and let some other businesses test it out first. Regardless, it will become the mainstay but only after a couple of years in the wild.

As for consumers? Come on, most consumers don't buy operating systems. They buy PCs and unless they have a specific reason they take whatever OS is standard and run with it. It's not condescending, it's fact. If the PC or notebook can perform the list of things they need it to do - digital photos/video, Internet, wireless, DVD piracy etc - they will buy it, often irrespective of OS. PC vendors have already given the thumbs up to Vista, and why not? After all, this will be the first new MS OS in over five years when it arrives. Or is that six years, or six and a half? It all depends on whether you believe Microsoft's launch schedule or that of the professional market watchers but, in the end, Vista will be standard on the vast majority of consumer PCs very quickly. Why? Because PC vendors need something new to boost sales and there is nothing wrong with that, and frankly, because Microsoft will have told them so. As a result, most normal people buying a new PC will end up with some version of Vista within a year or so.

So, again, what's all the fuss? So what if it's delayed another three months? So what if it requires a new monitor and more memory and a faster chip - hell, that's practically a whole new PC, isn't it? Damn and double damn. It may not be fair but Vista is arriving with all the grim inevitability of another series of Big Brother regardless of whether or not we want or need it. So, considering readers of the INQ know a little bit more about PCs than the masses, have your say. Do you want Vista? Do you need it? Do you have a choice? Do you care? Let's see what you think. Answers on a postcard accompanied by a donation of $1,000,000 to my secret Swiss bank account. Failing that, an email will do. µ