Join With Me Against XP

I'm on board with your idea... I oversee the administration of 3000 desktop systems in an educational environment, and I have no intention of upgrading from our current Win2K/Office2K platform. MS has gotten too greedy, and they feel invincible (particularly with the Supreme Court ruling this week). I hold an MCSE in WinNT, and will probably upgrade to Win2K, but I have no intention of pursuing WinXP certs. I have been working with Linux and Sun Solaris 8 (both of which can be aquired for free) and I like both the products. MS continues to release a new OS and office suites every 2 years, and continues with this nonsense Product Activation and subscription licensing scheme. This will cost small tech shops (like mine) a lot of time that could be better spent supporting users; large organizations may well have to hire a full-time 'MS license specialist' just to monitor product activations and licensing issues.

Microsoft will not listen to one or two of us, but if enough folks get fed up with their antics, they will lose market share and may go the way of Apple in the early 90s.

Thanks for the comment. Best of luck!

I absolutely agree with you, let the copies of XP collect dust on the shelves. If we don't make a statement now, its not going to get any better. Soon Microsoft will go from marketing a new O/S every 2 to 3 years to a new one every year and the rest of the industry will follow suit shortly ... all in the name of profit. Enough is enough already.

I know this will work because MS removed the smart tags from Windows XP due to public protest. I don't think XP will sell anyway because IS shops are short on cash and XP offers no gotta have features and people are starting to shy away from being so dependent on MS.

Its high time people realise MS strategy. Let us all put our effort in promoting STAR OFFICE in place of XP.

Hope SUN listens.

Microsoft can?t just hope that IT Pros continue updating the MCSE certificates every 2 or three years...
Of course Mr. Bill and his folks are only seeing the money aspect of the a new OS release, it is always the same strategie. The IT Pros? Well they will have to do the certifications again... Whats the big problem... I think that Microsoft has to be controlled by some institution with the power to do it, because it seems to me that many of the clients that buy Microsoft produtcs have just one way. Buy when Microsoft tells you to, and buy what Microsoft tells you to, or else... Let?s end this charade.

Remember when Word Perfect was a standard by which word processing programs were measured? Well Corel offers a Linux compatible package that includes Word Perfect and the Quattro spread sheet. That handles two of the classic three branches of business PC processing. (A decent database is the third.)

Corel also offers PhotoPaint 9, an Adobe competitor for Linux. That should do a good job of covering the graphics aspect, one that has been more important in web based business.

Given thatas a source on the applications side of things, avoiding the XP world is much easier. It isn't as if absolutely nothing exists.

Who knows, the old may become new again, at least until MS starts losing market share.

I agree that XP is not for most of my clients and I certainly do not like the new copy protection plans. The upgrade plans suck as you have eloquently stated.

It is my intention to keep my clients away from XP as long as is reasonable. My WordPerfect clients are happy they have stayed with WP and I am now encouraging them to stay with WP. Especially since the new release has added VB as the scripting and programming language. That was one of the reasons I had moved some clients away from WP. It was too costly and difficult to automate some of the office processes unless MS products were used.

And that brings me to the BUT... XP will offer office automation projects abilities that some clients will need. For those projects I see no way around XP. For now I am advising those clients to wait in the hopes that enough pressure will force Microsoft to reconsider.

The concept of "software by subscription" has been around for quite a while in the mini/mainframe world. What the vendor usually sells is the original software, and then they bundle maintenance and new versions into "support", which you buy annually. Classic example: Buy an Oracle (perpetual) license with support, and you get all new versions, plus support. Sure, you pay annually for support, but it's considered part of the cost of doing business. The support incl. upgrades run about 22% annually. Not exactly cheap, but it's predictable. As both an MS and Oracle customer, I like Oracle's approach better (even though Oracle has its own set of problems).

M$ could easily adopt that model, but they seem to be a bit on the greedy side. They want to sell 3 years at a time. To me, that would be like Oracle charging 33% (3 years in advance) for support. At least Oracle allows you to keep a (perpetual license) version running forever (even without support) if you really want to just let it sit.

IMHO, XP pricing is out of line and the licensing policies are obnoxious. Most of the complaints would go away if M$ offered a perpetual license with support, running about 20 to 25% of the full-version cost of the 2000 product. Lose the mandatory registration, and it's a done deal. To me, the M$ XP initiative is dead-on-arrival.

XP security is another reason to avoid it check out the following:
http://grc.com/dos/winxp.htm

If one were to through with a true boycott of Microsoft Products then we must be prepared for how Microsoft will fight back.

1. They will refuse to sell licenses any older software. So your choice is XP or Pirate. So Stock up on licenses NOW.
2. They will pull support for all older software so that nobody can find help for it, so make sure you save all those knowledge base articles you print out and hang all over IT.

3. They will modify XP just enough so it no longer conforms to the 2000 driver platform, then they will start urging peripheral makers to only create XP Drivers, this won't work for a while but eventually it will take hold (Anyone else finding it more and more difficult these days to find NT 4 drivers for certainpieces of hardware)

The only way to truly boycott a company that hold 90%+ of the market is to plan for how they will react and then support other efforts. Don't just download Linux for free, buy it and support the company. Use Linux for Servers (or if that's too complex there are plenty of easily configurable server appliances that usually run on a unix based OS (but is fully compatible with Windows)

Just thought I'd give you guys some tips on staying ahead of the giant.

PS. Don't get Microsoft certified, they are only going to expire it.

Hey I feel your pain, so speak, in regards to Microsoft's greed and routinely "planned obsolesence" but thinking you're boycott plan will even create a hairline fracture in the Microsoft money machine is nothing but wishful thinking. Even if you gotthe attention of 1,000,000 people that's a pathetically small number of Microsoft customers. Then you are forgetting the main institutions that "encourage" Microsoft for constantly producing this crap - colleges, schools, and large corporations. Theschools and colleges don't care about issues like security holes or subscription services - they just know its new and that sells them seats in the classrooms to teach the stuff (in turn they buy the training materials and pay for Microsoft "certified" instructor kits, academic copies of the software, etc.). Then you have the huge companies, I'm talking with 10's of thousands of employees - who'll spend millions on software without blinking an eye.

If you want to make a real impact and not just a "for the moment because I'm pissed and bored but it will pass after I vent" statement, rally up the people in high places of these behemoth corporations and educational institutions. Convince them some how to not support XP - then, well then you'll have an "Anti-XP Empire" that the Romans would envy against a bunch of foot soldiers (aka "Microsoft").

Ahhh...what a beautiful thought.

I know that the boycott is based on the licn$e issue I was just adding that the fact that all users run as root with raw sockets is another reason not to run eXtra Payments aka XP

I agree that XP is going too far and I will not buy a copy and it's only for the product activation "feature" but I think MS will have enough sales that they will continue this action but let's go back a few years if I get anything wrong please let me know. In 1994 microsoft never thought internet would take off like what it is and they weren't making products for the internet once they saw it was catching on they started working on internet Explorer 1.0 in 1995 or 1996 microsoft has always since then tried to find a way in integrate the internet with thier products Windows 98 got real famous for the court trial personally I think the internet is great but when I'm using an operating system I don't to see a big webpage come up and tell me something is wrong.

It's bad enough people talk about things thay know nothing about and just because thay heard some one else or read some one else's bull. Shut Up already and let the indestry take it's course.

While I agree with you concerning the OS swich, I am very happy with my 2000 and do not plan on changing, the OfficeXP is a great improvement over Office2000.

Unlike the mostly cosmetic upgrad from Office97 to 2000, XP comes with some nice new bells and wihistles. The enhanced online file sharing and automatic file recover after a crash are welcome changes. When you add to that the speech recognition software, which in my oppinion works as good if not better than Dragon's "NaturallySpeaking" ($80), you have quite a nice package of goodies that sold me on the product.

The only things that irked me about OfficeXP was the 210MB of disk space I had to give up and the required registration.

In short, I'm behind you all the way with the OS, but I got to have my OfficeXP.

i am with you! windows 2000 is the king, and XP is just a minor revision of it. stick with 2000 and you'll do well. this product will flop and MS will have no choice but to fix things.

I agree w/you, however from my side of the IT industry involvement, I must remind everyone that the focus should be to outsource to India a good proportion of IT requirements as unfortunately many of the U.S. employees are just not seeking to enter into the IT industry and it is vital that we continue to bring valued software development/IT solutions to U.S. industry even if it means that IT Managers employ foreign nationals and offshore workers to get the results U.S. industry requires.

Any action has to have at least a medium term strategic overview. Ideally, what we want is a strategy that will hit Microsoft's pocket HARD and thus force a policy change, and one that will benefit our companies. I note that at least one person here has put forward WordPerfect Suite as an alternative, and I have to say it's pleasant to use and very fully featured, to the extent that I'm considering whether that would form a better basis for productivity applications than Office. The bonus is, of course, that it will read Office files anyway, and that there is a Linux version. The immediate hit to MS will be via the sales of office licenses that they will lose (and forget Windows, Office is by far the greater amount of their revenue), and it forms a relatively seamless base for a move away from Windows desktops full stop.
Frankly, I think that the "Upgrade or die" deadline that Microsoft have imposed (i.e. if you haven't upgraded by a certain date you will have to pay full price afterward) is little more than blackmail, and I am extremely reluctant to commit my company to an eternal rental scheme.

I am with you. XP has too many bad features for me to ever consider allowing it in my organization. Office 2000 has 90% more features than we ever use, Windows 2000 has pleanty of bells and whistles. Why should I "Subscribe" to their "buy a new car every couple of years" style of garbage productions when it is so full of loopholes, piracy, and just plain meglomania! By the time I am ready to change my corporate OS Linux will finally have an GUI I can put in front of my users, and beleive me I will!! (for more information on the raw ports problem in XP, check out it is a must read!)

How do you do that? Taking MS down and STILL using its services? Thats weard. I still agree that this is hard to swallow. OK when you don't want to buy XP, don't buy anything from MS because in all new apps with 'XP' and 'C#" will have this in it. Swap to linux environment, you will have all the abilities of windows AND MORE. That's at this time the most hurting action against MS you could take.

I agree!
I fix,upgrade, maintain computers and look for current updates for all MS platforms and products online - have you done that lately?
The support page is now a sales pitch for XP!
How about this..,
1. Make a product.
2. Make it right
3. Support your product.
4.Introduce a NEW product. Not a rip off of your own work and tout it as BETTER, GETS WHITES WHITER,AND WON'THARM THE ENVIROMENT. AND SAFE FOR KIDS.

I agree this cycle is good only for bill & co. The rest of the world is caught under their monopolistic arrogant thumb. For the price of this software, one could buy a new PC for gawds sake. The corporate world needs an alternative that can deliver what they need. Personally, I think Linux will be that alternative. I am making plans to go in that direction. I hope it happens sooner than later.

I concur entirely with your statement; for most cases software is a product, not a service. Evaluate other software, ie Linux, Unix, or possibly even MacOSX (though I'm not sure if it runs on intel yet). Whatever. The only time it's valid as a service is when you need immediate onsite support (and then usually that's hardware anyway).

Hey, valakan, have you looked at Windows or Office XP yet? There are a few neat features to Office XP, but Windows XP has a totally re-vamped interface, making it easier for the user to find things, as well as being more intuitive for the user to work with. As for product activation, the only users that need to worry about product activation are people that buy either OEM or retail copies of the product...licensing agreements don't require activation. The idea here is to keep Joe Blow from burning a copy for Uncle Manny and all six of his kids, if you know what I mean. The only way that I see that being a problem is if you've been burning a few on the side...

At any rate, Microsoft has stated publicly that shops that are considering rolling out Win2K should NOT alter those plans, so nobody's being pushed here to upgrade every two years, the products are simply being made available. Yes, they hope everybody will upgrade regularly, but they still have the DOJ watching closely, so they won't get crazy.

One more point...the changes in the licensing structure are supposed to make it easier for a company to keep current with software. the choice is simple: if you're a shop that upgrades every 4+ years, buy just the license products and media that you need when you need them; if you're a shop that upgrades more than every 4 years, buy the Software Assurance, it's more cost-effective and allows you the OPTION of upgrading over the two-year effective period to any or all releases of whatever product you bought your software Assurance on. This doesn't mean that you have to upgrade, it simply allows you the option of upgrading at your convenience.

I couldn't agree more! I have "looked the other way" for years concerning MS's business practices, mostly because they were the only real game in town. I can no longer do this. I have worked long and hard, gone back to school to be W2k certified,even changed careers after 20 years of being an auto mechanic... Only to find out that soon after XP hits the shelves my certification will be "retired", and I'll have to spend even more time and money to certify in XP. COME ON! Nobody can tell me that ANYONE can totally take advantage of W2k's features in even 5-10 years, much less require a new OS in only 18-24 months! Ridiculous! For myself, I will NOT recertify in a new OS. Not when so few companies have upgraded to W2k. IT professionals world-wide should come together and boycott XP, make it such a colossal flop that MS will wake up and stop ripping off the very people that make the IT industry run evry day.

Agree entirely - another neat gesture would be to leave the odd bit of negative literature at retail outlets XP stands (e.g. Staples, PC World etc...) - then the unsuspecting home users won't get screwed.

I fully intend to make win2k the last M$ OS that I use. When (not if) Linux is ready for prime time as a desktop OS I will be making the switch. It is already more than ready as a server OS.

For the cost of making the upgrade to win2k or win XPfor a company, they could put those resources into switching to Linux and get out of being a slave and stooge to M$.

When need to have a Declaration of Independence to M$ much the way this great country freed itself from the tyranny of the British monarchy. Someday King Bill will go the way of all royalty- irrelevance. Here's to freedom and democracy!

i used to do ux i lived and breathed it for most of my life but four years ago i sold out and went m$. it not perfect but nothing is. the gentalmen was correct when he said look at the hp titainium. m$ and hp talked together about this and that is why they happened so close together. i say boycott the sell outs IBM has AIX they sell nt boxes, hp has hp ux they sell nt boxes the list goes on and on. i say boycott the sell outs m$ will f them selfs but we will keep the double taking ux backstabbers alive for years.