I obviously work closely with small business partners and a thread at the SBSBPI.co.uk website got me thinking.  The question that was asked is why is Windows XP, which has always been a great product, suddenly a "bad" product, so much so that people need to buy a new operating system, Windows Vista.

To answer this, lets look at a few things - is Windows XP bad - nope, it is an excellent operating system, but it has a design that was delivered 5 years ago, with a major security overhaul with XP SP2.  SP2 was a good security fix, but it still left the onus on the user to understand the risks they were taking.  From a user interface point of view, people have got used the XP interface - well, except for you die hard folks who only use the classic interface, get with the program - use a mouse and the non-classic control panel - you know you can do it!!  Windows XP is then supplemented by Defender, 3rd party anti-virus products, anti-spam, filters, toolbars, search and other powertoys to lift it to a "desirable" state.

Now let's look at what has changed in the last 5 years since Windows XP was designed an released:

• The Internet - people use it for everything, Web, IM, core business applications, sharing information, finding friends and researching information
• Data volumes - remember when a 32MB USB still was big enough - is it now? As the amount of data goes up, so does the need to manage it.
• Security - things have changed here - the threats from both amateur and organized groups is far greater now, so therefore is the need for corporate ownership of the problem rather than the individual user.  Even the value of data has increased, so protecting information on laptops is more important - remember the person who left gulf war plans in the back of his car - disk encryption is a business need by more and more, especially if it only costs a few pounds.
• Mobility - how common were wireless networks 5 years ago versus now - and what is more, people looking to garner information over them, such as bank details.  Combine this with the large amounts of data and the desire to access it on the road, potentially over things like GPRS and the work is a new place.
• Personal use of computing - people do more with PCs now - photos, music, videos, CDs, DVDs, chat etc, the world has changed

There is obviously loads more that has changed than that in the world and IT, but these are some of the things that Vista tries to address, and much more.

So, when someone asks you what will Vista do for them, it will give them a platform for the 2nd half of the 1st decade of the 21st century, rather than one that was designed at the end of the 20th.

Obviously, on these areas alone, Vista has lots of new items:

• The Internet - RSS feeds, IE7, protect mode browsing, new mail and blogging tools, Internet enabled sidebar, new sharing tools, privacy and parental controls, device discovery, IPv6, IISv7
• Data volumes - Vista has the new disk management tools - so you can shrink volumes to expand others on disks, search on everything
• Security - encryption, Defender, 2-way firewall, User Access Control, ntfs enhancements, file sharing, kernel protection
• Mobility - new wireless settings, easier bluetooth, mobility center, working resume
• Personal use of computing - parental controls, fast user switching in domains, new user interfaces, sidebar, Ultimate extras, CD & DVD burning, DVD playback, better updates and crash management, show me help

and this is just the beginning