[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]People who cry foul the most are businesses hanging on to older workstations and regular folks who bought the bargain machine off the shelf.[/citation]
My office has 25 machines running Windows XP. Most of my users are not particularly tech-savvy and would have a hard time learning Vista or Windows 7--Most of them are using XP at home.
Now, an upgrade has costs... You have the license fees and you also have the cost to roll out the OS and to train your staff to use it. The license fees are the smallest part of the actual cost for this rollout.
In testing, I have identified numerous application and process compatibility issues that would be caused by Vista. I run 7 RC at home but won't begin testing for my office environment until it's gold but for now we'll give MS the benefit of the doubt and say that some (but not all) of the compatibility issues will be solved by the time 7 is released.
Now we weigh the costs and the complications against what would be gained by upgrading. And herein lies the rub--I have yet to identify a new feature or component of the newer versions of Windows that would actually help my company. If there was a feature set that would improve productivity, efficiency, security, or anything, that would be one thing. But we're talking about a major expense for a company just so they can say they're using a newer OS and I can't justify that.
I'm not a big fan of upgrading just because it's there. Maybe Windows 7 can do more, but in order for me to consider an OS an upgrade, I need one that will do more for me. Features that I actually would use would need to justify the cost, not just provide some eye candy.
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