Windows Vista: An Enterprise Failure

Windows Vista has never been viewed as reliable by the public eye and also by enterprise professionals. So why exactly did Windows Vista fail? I came across this post on ZDNet that lists the top five reasons why Windows Vista was not an enterprise success. Here are the reasons:

5. Apple successfully demonized Vista
Over the past 2 years, Apple has changed the perception of Windows Vista to be buggy, boring, and difficult to use. Only recently has Microsoft responded with the “I’m a PC” campaign to empower the brand image.

4. Windows XP is too entrenched
By the year 2008, over 1.1 billion PCs worldwide and over 70% were running Windows XP. Windows XP was the most widely used operating system in the world and this would prove to be a lot of work for IT departments to consolidate.

3. Vista is too slow
Windows Vista has over 50 million lines of code, and so this software bloat would slow down computers running on Vista even if PCs had the latest and fastest hardware.

2. There wasn’t supposed to be a Vista
After the release of Windows 95 and 98, Microsoft was looking to step away from its traditional business model and start offering subscription services to consumers. It quickly abandoned this business model.

1. It broke too much stuff
Windows XP caught on quick because it was compatible with nearly everything. When Vista was released, a lot of existing hardware and software were not compatible with it.

Winner of DemoJam: Enterprise Wide Spell Checking

In Las Vegas this week,SAP hosted their version of American Idol.Encouraging techies to come up with applications to suite the enterprise, seven applications made it to Las Vegas. They were:

- CN Track Inspection System: Canadian National Railways
- Improve SAP Data Quality Using Web-Based User Interfaces with Workflow Approvals and Posting: BackOffice Associates, LLC
- Enterprise-Wide Spell Checking: SAP
- ESME: Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment: Siemens SIS
- Consuming Web Services Using XML Over HTTP: Apple
- ABAP Ninja: Panaya
- iPhone-ize your SAP Data: Xact Soft

In the end, after the fanfare and festivities, Enterprise Wide Spell Checking by SAP won out. For more indepth coverage on the contest, check out ZD Net.

Apple to Gain Majority Share in Enterprise?

Last Friday at 8am I saw the line at the AT&T store stretch from one block to another, in light of Apple’s new release the iPhone 3G. This post on ZNet discusses how Apple has moved over 1 million iPhones in a span of 3 days, and that 39% of buyers own PCs. It seems as if the iPhone is making a direct move to overtake enterprise share, since IT remains a Windows world.

With the growing popularity and acceptance of the iPhone in the corporate world, Salesforce.com and Oracle are quick to build CRM and Business Intelligence applications for the iPhone. The iPhone already integrates Microsoft Exchange, calendar, contacts, world-class browsing, and many enterprise applications in its repertoire; what’s next for Apple?

Apple, Oh Apple

In our recent post we discussed how the iPhone has finally tailored its own LinkedIn application on its mobile phone, but when will Apple adapt to other enterprise apps. Larry Dignan’s latest entry marvels at how Apple is still trailing its counterpart Microsoft within the enterprise realm.

When will we see the iPhone compete with the Blackberry in terms of corporate exchange mail servers, clearly Apple still has a long way to go. The iPhone is no doubt the most aesthetically pleasing mobile phone out there, but its enterprise functionality is still lacking. Catching the subway to work everyday makes me realize how popular the iPhone has become amongst corporate executives, but its mobile technology will have to adapt to the growing need of enterprise apps. Steve Jobs has a track record of appealing to consumer markets, but it is time for a change. It is not enough to just tailor an enterprise social networking site, they must do more…

We will not see an influx of Mac OS X servers in the enterprise anytime soon, but Apple most start somewhere. So I’ll turn back to a question posed by Larry Dignan…Apple, is it 25 years too late?