OneAndOneIs2

Slashdot links to an article giving ten reasons to buy Vista.

Hmm....

#1 - better security. Who does he think he's fooling? How many typical home users even know what computer security is? This won't impress many home users - they either don't care, or have free third-party add-ons keeping them safe enough. It won't impress many business users either - how many people haven't even upgraded to XP SP2? Case closed.
I rather liked a comment on /. on this score: "So, instead of a wide open door with a 'PLEASE ROB ME!!!" sign taped to it, they've half closed the door and put up a sign that says "ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, I WOULD PREFER THAT YOU NOT STEAL ALL MY BELONGINGS, IF THAT'S OK WITH YOU.""

#2 - IE7. Rubbish. It's available for XP and is mostly just copying stuff Firefox and Opera already have. This is MS desperately trying to catch up, not a reason to switch.

#3 - Eye candy. Oh, come on - Every screenshot I've yet seen in Vista has been hideous. XP was bad enough, but Vista's blurry overuse of transparency really takes the cake. I don't know where MS has been getting their fashion sense from in recent years, but even their "classic" look has been better than the new stuff.

#4 - Desktop search. This puzzles me, I swear I heard that this was being dropped as it depended on the new WinFS. Maybe it's a halfway house? Either way, again, it's got to compete with free & popular third-party apps. It also presupposes that you've got users desperate to find files regularly enough for search to be useful, but remaining too dumb and/or lazy to actually organise their folders into a hierarchy to make it easy to find things.

#5 - Better updates. See #1

#6 - Improved media player. Right. . . This would be the media player that was ruled illegal in Europe? That'll be a big help then. And last I checked, the biggest player in the PC-music world was iTunes, so MS is in for a fight with this one.

#7 - Parental controls. Ah, yes, how well they worked for AOL. . .

#8 - Better backups. Nope, not seeing this one. How many home users backup? How many business users haven't already got effective backing up?

#9 - P2P collaboration. Does the *AA know about this?? :o) Seriously, tho, this one might be of some use to business users. No good at all to home users tho, realistically - how often do you have multiple people working on a document at home?

#10 - Quick setup. Ehh? "You should upgrade to our new OS because it won't take long to install it!" - how is this a reason to upgrade? It takes no time at all to stick with what you've got. . .

Overall, it sounds more like the writer has been racking his brains trying to create a list of plausible reasons than it does a list of wonderful things that just leapt out at him. There's very little in there that will tempt the typical Windows user into spending the cash to upgrade his/her machine rather than just waiting until they next buy a new PC.

I also can't help but notice that the entire list could easily be adapted for an article "Ten reasons to switch to Apple": More secure? Check. Better browser? Check. Eye candy? Definite check. Desktop search? Yep, spotlight. Good updates? So I hear. Media? iTunes. 'Nuff said. Parental controls? *Nix-based user accounts and file permissions. Better backups? Negated by better reliability.

And so on.

So far, Vista is frankly a fairly lame attempt at catching up to what *nix-based desktops have already. Not many people have switched to Mac or Linux desktops for these features, so there's no real reason to think that the same features on Vista will tempt a stampede.

I remain unchanged in my view that Vista will be, at best, something people get with a new PC, not something they upgrade their existing hardware to. That means Vista won't be widespread for several more years.

One can only wonder how much that delay is going to hurt MS. Intel Macs, the OpenDocument format, the ever-improving Linux desktop, Sun's 3D-desktop & office suite, Google's many betas, Mozilla, Opera, IBM. . . there's a lot of stuff happening right now that's taking away the need for MS software that has laways been the cornerstone of MS's success. Vista has got to be a success if MS wants to survive, and it's got to be successful very soon.

And I still can't see anything that's going to make it succeed. Even in pro-Vista articles like this one.