Microsoft Brags That Vista Will Be A Burden To European Companies

from the jobs-jobs-jobs dept

Fri, Sep 15th 2006 8:10am — Joseph Weisenthal

A new Microsoft-funded IDC study claims that the introduction of Vista in Europe will lead to the creation of up to 50,000 jobs, as money flows forth from corporate coffers for Vista-associated costs. Undoubtedly, Microsoft will use the data from the study to help resolve its ongoing tensions with the EU. But even if we set aside our skepticism about the 50,000 number, is this even a good thing? Job creation isn't itself a measure of economic progress. In fact, it'd be much more impressive if the study said the introduction of Vista would make 50,000 existing jobs unnecessary, freeing that human capital up for higher value work. Really what Microsoft is saying with this study is that the introduction of Vista will be an increased burden on companies, forcing them to spend more in several different areas. In fact, as Vinnie Marchandani, a former Gartner analyst who's seen these new software introduction before, points out, upgrades are typically low ROI events. Of course, politicians love to talk about job creation, since that's what gets them elected, so who knows, some in the EU might be swayed by this report.

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19 Comments

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Chris D., 15 Sep 2006 @ 8:41am

Its all about the jobs...
The point about jobs is all to help smooth the wheels of the EU. They are in such need of more jobs in allot of the countries in the EU that this will be welcome news. I agree with the author that to me this is NOT a good thing but the political hacks will love it. Then they will complain of course for some other reason.
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Beck, 15 Sep 2006 @ 8:41am

i.e.
In other words, how much money will be spent upgrading computers to Vista, just to end up with a computer that does exactly what it does now?
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DittoBox, 15 Sep 2006 @ 9:20am

As was said on /.
"This really gives new meaning to the "Broken Windows" economic theory..."
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Apple Rules, 15 Sep 2006 @ 9:24am

Typical
So the new jobs are coming from more people bing employed in the I.T. dept. to deal with the new non-workable trash that MS calls Vista.
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sm, 15 Sep 2006 @ 9:38am

it'd be much more impressive if the study said the introduction of Vista would make 50,000 existing jobs unnecessary
You know someone would be bashing MS if they did say that Vista would save money by cutting jobs. MS just can't do anything right can they?
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Steve, 15 Sep 2006 @ 9:49am

On the contrary they do a lot of things right, the blue screen comes up when it's needed and the updates come right on time after the security flaw has already been violated...
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Beefcake, 15 Sep 2006 @ 9:52am

You Spin Me Right Round Baby, Right Round
MS has the Art of Spin down cold. Expensive pain in the ass to our customers = "Job Creation".

Brilliant.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2006 @ 10:33am

what braging rights?
I brag that vista will be the downfall of all windows users.

I used it once (beta) and ... uh... lets just say... for those who want to spend as little as possible for a pc. you won't be able to pull that off with Vista. you will need a goooood machine to run it
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Huddie, 15 Sep 2006 @ 10:36am

MS Vista and Jobs
You have to recognize that politicians--whom Microsoft is trying to appeal to --care about only one thing:Jobs. Jobs keep you in office. Jobs protect the Brussel's bureaucracy. This study is raw meat to pacify the lions.
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Jamie, 15 Sep 2006 @ 10:42am

Not how most of Europe thinks
" it'd be much more impressive if the study said the introduction of Vista would make 50,000 existing jobs unnecessary"

Saying it would kill 50,000 jobs would just make it more likely that the EU would try to block it. After all, from their point of view, that would mean 50,000 people out of work. Most of the semi-socialist economies in Europe would not believe that the money saved would go back into the economy in the form of new industries.
That isn't the case with all European nations, but it seems to be the way that a lot of them operate.
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sillyIT, 15 Sep 2006 @ 11:04am

LINUX
Well - I played around with VISTA on a PIII - runs like, well, junk - as expected.

Loaded up Fedora Core 5 on same box - NO problems at all - runs great.

Vista will also feed hardware upgrade dollars to many companies - it will definitely not perform well on many of todays machines.

So if you have an existing but maybe two year old computer - your gonna be out a lot of cash if you must use this underwhelming OS.
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You can download Vista transformation..., 15 Sep 2006 @ 1:29pm

Try Linux B4 Vista
You can download Vista transformation pack from torrent site and install a Desktop Sidebar on Windows XP. Using the new Aero (also called Glass) Icons, windows, menu, theme, cursor, and Segui font (some other vista fonts as well). It will make your XP machine look exactly like a Vista while maintaining an OS that is more stable than Vista. I'm quite happier with the new look of my computer because it saves me cash from new hardware and $400 OS. I noticed the RC1 is just too slow for my Dell P3 with 768 MB RAM and a hard drive with 16 MB built-in buffer (7200 RPM). The search service along with others cause major slowdown in performance. I restart to try to regain memory but startup loads shit again. I disabled memory whores that I knew weren't needed and just with barebone system it is slow. I always see the few (less than 10 percent) who are die hard Linux. I need to learn how to install the right version, get it somewhere, and find drivers (and most importantly-programs!). I am a do it yourselfer in life. Learn fast by myself and still haven't found straightforward Linux guide. A walk through guide would be great... I use Firefox, LimeWire, OpenOffice, Mac OS X, and have found open source to be very efficient and small in regards to memory use, hard drive space, and setup programs. Java is a good example as well. If one of Linux enabled would be so willing to lend some IT starter info to the newbie, I would greatly appreciate. Remember how you had to learn on your own, and post it!
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MockingBird, 15 Sep 2006 @ 1:32pm

it's not so bad
having email servers and file servers requires more people in the company focused on those things.
but it improves the efficiency of the company many times. more jobs required for new functionality is not necessarily a bad thing.
the ROI has to figure what the benefits ofthe new OS will be vs the new manpower to install and support it. some assume it's all crap. (hard to do if it's not even released yet, but that doesn't stop people).
heck, generals have said that planes will not affect wars, and economics profesors said delivering packages overnight was a useless business model.

companies and home users will slowly migrate to vista just like they have all the previous versions.
a minute saved every day will save about 4 hours of labor per person per year in a company.
larger companies will obviously reap greater savings.
the smaller companies will follow suit when they can.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2006 @ 2:40pm

Jobs & EU
Job creation, like you said, can be 'bad' in a macro sense; it can represent, like in this case, potential inefficiency. It could also create wealth creation if some of these jobs do new things in a more productive manner, but I'm not sure thats the case..

But of course, an economy with a GDP of $100 with 50% unemployment can be said to be much better than an economy with a GDP of $60 but with only 5% unemployment. However, and this is the case with the EU at the moment, most people wouldn't like to see half the population in destitution, so it becomes a social issue. Nevermind social hang-ups and ignorance of capitalism in the EU is what causes their problems, thats a different story. =)

And some of you nuts are truly idiots. Comparing Vista and Linux on a P3? That's sick. Linux fanboys can't accept that Linux is built upon a command line, and no matter how hard any distro tries to make its mediocre GUI capabilities better, at the end of the day, if a user didn't like DOS he's not going to like Linux in the long-run. Even Win95, which was a GUI pasted on top of DOS practically, required less from the user than getting serious tweaking done in Linux in an efficient way does. Two different markets; why can't you people accept that?! Linux doesn't even have a parallel to Vista anyway; that's like comparing a Civic to a Lexus. Civic gets work done, but Lexus makes life easy.

And if you mean you need a "gooooood" computer to run Vista you mean something thats NOT a 3+ year old bucket of bolts, then yes. But people who have any interest beyond merely finishing work isn't still poking along on anything less than a Athlon XP 2400+, which, coincidentally, ran Vista absolutely great with 768mb RAM in Beta 2, that pre-RC1 release and now RC1, no problems loading high-RAM apps like Office 2007's Word, Excel & Powerpoint simultaneously, either. But go ahead, speak in ignorance, tell people Vista will require 2GB to load in under 10min if it makes you e-penis feel better.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2006 @ 2:47pm

Re: Try Linux B4 Vista
Actually RC1 has been every bit as stable as my XP install so far. I've rebooted my RC1 test box a few times since its been installed, compared to the nearly month uptime of my XP install, so can't definitively say its "more" stable yet.

And on a Turion ML34 512mb laptop, astoundingly, it's performance is noticeably improved over Windows XP Pro that was on it, with improved battery life to boot! That was a shocker for me, and once I tweaked out a few settings, it got even better. Beta 1 was a different story, but it's shaped up. And unlike Ubuntu, MEPIS and PCLinuxOS, it had all the hardware working without installing a single driver.

At this point in the game, complaining about an unstable Vista box is the same about complaining about an unstable Windows box. The problem lies between the keyboard and the chair. Memtest86+ and Prime95 are good tools.
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indi, 15 Sep 2006 @ 7:30pm

try and plug vista into your plasma for HD content.
Bummer it wont work, MS wont allow it due to HDCP.
Another reason to keep my whole business linux and mac based.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Sep 2006 @ 9:29pm

Or maybe it means that vista will create possibilities that didnt exist before..

I dont believe it, but its plausible.
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Deirdre' Straughan, 18 Sep 2006 @ 4:46am

The money to create those jobs has to come from somewhere, and how many companies on the receiving end of all these Vista-related IT services will be able to afford to spend that much, merely to accomplish the same Windows tasks we are already doing with our current software and hardware?

At a small, cash-strapped company like the one I work for, it's much more likely that we'll all just start using OpenOffice.
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Mik. Usselc, 13 Oct 2006 @ 8:37am

Do you all think that vista will run decently on a dual pIII board? Also will it recognize both cpu with the RC1 version that is up for testing?
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