Following on from my previous post about the new changes in Microsoft Office and Windows Vista. The post by Leonie proves my point. When you are soo used to something it is hard to change to something new.
So the question is, will this major change push people away from Windows? While it provided a good incentive for Nic and Leonie to consider a MacBook. I think the answer is still ‘No’. For the normal user it is no becauseagain the problem of learning something different. Now for Leonie maybe she already uses Mac so the transition will not be painful. But for others (someone who never or rarelyused a mac) I think it will be less effort to learn the new features of Vista than to move away and use a Mac or Linux. Which leaves that user with 2options (keep what Ihave now or go ahead and make the effort to upgrade).
As for corporates, I think it’s only a matter of time till corporates invest in Vista and here’s why :Microsoft’s mainstream support is for 5 years, see hereand support for Windows XP will end around 2009 see here. So by then Microsoft will not support XP and therefore it might be another reason why all corporates that use Microsoft software would consider the upgrade. So whether the user likes it or not, we have to get used to new ways of doing things, and if we will have to do it anyway then probably better to be ahead and do it now!
The other thing is the opportunities arising for the software sector, go read Rod’s post on this.