Ballmer to businesses: deploy WinXP now and face concerns from employees

There's no two ways about it -- Microsoft has moved a truckload of Windows Vista licenses. That said, just 10 percent of all PCs within enterprises in North America and Europe use Vista, with the vast majority sticking to what has worked for years: Windows XP. Company CEO Steve Ballmer had quite the zinger on this topic during a recent interview at an NYC interview to mark the extension of Microsoft's collaboration with EMC, and we're certain you'll love it. Here goes: "If you deploy a four or five-year old operating system today [Windows XP], most people will ask their boss why the heck they don't have the stuff [Vista / Windows 7] they have at home." Of course, a one-off remark from some chap that's not at all pertinent to the day-to-day operations of a company isn't apt to make a business owner rethink their approach to running their own show, but we're sure it's fun for Steve to think that only a handful of consumers out there are still relying on WinXP.

[Via PCWorld]

[theFear13ss Posted Feb 6th 2009 10:34AM]

I was going to switch to Vista, but then I found Linux... in fact, the latest release of Ubuntu even installed on my 1999 PII laptop (can't say the same for XP, let alone Vista).
Windows 7 vs KDE (in the style of the Mojave experiment)
http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/Is-it-Windows-7-or-KDE-4-/0,139023769,339294810,00.htm

[J Acheson Posted Feb 6th 2009 10:40AM]

Employee: "We should switch to Vista, so that I can have the features I have on my PC at home."

Boss: "YOOOOU'RRRE FIIRRRRRREDDDDD!!!!"

[Jamus Posted Feb 6th 2009 10:56AM]

Ahhhh, Ballmer-isms! Heeeelarious. Sorry Stevie, we are sitting on our XP installs for now. Not doing Vista. Period.

[iismileyll Posted Feb 6th 2009 11:35AM]

My work place still uses win 2k... mumble...

[jeffself Posted Feb 6th 2009 1:10PM]

I asked that very same question. I ask why I can't have the same at work as I have at home either. So I'm totally agreeing with Balmer here. The only difference that I can think of is that I run OS X at home.

[hungryhungryhippo Posted Feb 6th 2009 1:32PM]

Want some insider knowledge??

MOST Microsoft employees use XP as Vista will not work within Microsofts network.

My husband works there and wanted vista when it came out, well he got it and nothing would work so Microsoft IT set him up with XP again.

Either Ballmer is an idiot, or misinformed. Either way Microsoft is going way way downhill.

[popeyesmotto Posted Feb 6th 2009 1:42PM]

The Federal government has not allowed the use of Win Vista deployment on their machines. It is unlikely that they will move anytime soon considering the amount of money required to integrate a new OS. Many agencies have specialized products that are debugged specifically to work in the XP environment and the cost to debug for a new OS by the third party suppliers will inflate costs further.

[m509272 Posted Feb 6th 2009 5:02PM]

Here's what employees want

1) Email works
2) Browser works
3) Excel works
4) Word works
gets fuzzier at this point....
5) Powerpoint works ?
6) OS doesn't crash, OS isn't slow, OS starts up relatively quickly

The large international company I work for, 50,000 employees, still uses IE 6 and Office 2003 and of course XP Pro.

I have not heard boo about Vista nor anything about an Office upgrade. The environment works, the people are trained, etc.

I think if they were going to get pushed off XP, which I doubt, they might split deployment. People that can get by with Linux will get that and people that need Windows will get Windows 7.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 6th 2009 4:12PM]

My company is virtually all XP with no plans to upgrade any time soon. I've got nothing in particular against Vista, but if it ain't broke, why fix it? Our PCs do what they need to do, they let us write emails, documents, spreadsheets, share files, and run various software tools specific to the job. I don't hear anyone complaining about it being outdated, but then we're mostly all techie types.

[Viceroy Posted Feb 7th 2009 10:22AM]

Remember the good ol' days of 95&NT 98&NT Me&win2k? Why is it that there are a half dozen versions of Vista and none of them are the "Productivity/get your ass to work" model that was once NT workstation? So you say vista is more secure, that may be, I don't care to research this detail. You say its more stable, also possible but unlikely as XPw/Sp2 is pretty solid (for a WinOS). I work in IT at a small educational (

[Viceroy Posted Feb 7th 2009 10:34AM]

DAMN Forum processor. How hard is it to escape a less-than!

[JJCT2001 Posted Feb 7th 2009 8:03PM]

You all have to give credit to Microsoft for trying out an ambitious product like Vista. Windows 7 is just an even better version, which i am running it on a 5 yr old machine at the moment.

What they should have done, is release this as a major service pack instead of trying to make money off of it (but we are all capitalists, so of course they would make money out of it). If they really wanted to push Vista out and make it a great OS, then that is what they should have done.

To be honest, i havent really had any problems with Vista, from a consumer standpoint, as long as you bought a pc already preloaded with it; I can understand though how businesses would have major problems with it. I think Win 7 is a really great refresh to an aging OS. I am used to all of its features, and XP/Vista(sort of) feel kinda incomplete. I do depend on the jump lists, and the gadgets (which XP lacks). If they stuck with Vista and actually spent time fixing it, it would have become a great OS and even consume less system resources. I just wish they could have added in support for legacy products like XP can do, and does it well. I do not have the fancy Aero on b/c if integrated graphics (intel extreme graphics 2, ugh.) but all i need really is the stability of the OS, the functions, and the features. i think Windows 7 looks great without Aero on anyway, but i know Aero would be the icing on the cake. at least Aero shake works. When i use a friend's laptop, XP kinda became foreign to me and i think it looks ugly w/o any visual enhancements.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 9th 2009 5:02PM]

as someone who is currently doing the hardware, software and website testing for their company's Vista rollout, I say this:
I had planned on rolling Vista next week... now my department is considering waiting it out until WIndows 7 launches... which is unfortunate as I just spent the last month and a half testing ALL our company hardware and software on a Vista64 unit. While MOST of it works, not all of it does. Now that we're unsure if we want to roll Vista now or wait for 7... I'm debating if my work has gone to waste.
If we wait for 7, I have to redo all my testing just to safeguard against any compatibility issues.

Now, I use Vista at home, and I like it. I won't be buying Windows 7 for my home PCs, but we'll continue deploying XP because it currently works with all our software and hardware.