Vista and Office for Small Businesses - replying to Susanne's and Vijay's blogs

Vista and Office 2007 for Small Business (responding to more comments) - and the EVO Tour and more learnings (updated with links)

David Overton's Blog — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:00:03 GMT

Well, the EVO Tour is underway, with some initial bad feedback, we have taken that on board and now the

re: Vista and Office for Small Businesses - replying to Susanne's and Vijay's blogs

David Overton — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 18:31:48 GMT

Martin,

nice to see your comments - I will reply in a full blog entry to ensure others do no miss them.

ttfn

David

Where did the last fortnight go?

This is Vista - Time to get Vistafied... — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 18:22:18 GMT

Firstly, an apology - my posting frequency has dropped dramatically over the last 2 weeks, and with only

re: Vista and Office for Small Businesses - replying to Susanne's and Vijay's blogs

Martin Limburn — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:50:45 GMT

David,

Sorry to say lots of your comments are just the normal stuff that MS spout out.

Real Live scenario.

I have a customer who has major issues with a new LOB app.

They run SBS and XP desktops.

Most of the issues can be reslved witht he changes in Vista, and the writers of the app agree it will work in Vista and that the problems will be resolved.

No apart fromt the fact they should have coded the app to work properly in the first place we have a solution to what is becoming an expensive problem.

Change the 10 or so desktop to a vista platform, make the needed changes so the app will function and problem solved.

Well no, because this custoemr has temps that may or may not work on these platforms, the changes in UI between XP and Vista are significant that this solution will not work. They believe (and so do I knowing the workforce) they are going to have to upgrade all of their Computers all 35 Desktops. On top of this, they are then going to have to ensure that all of the other LOB Apps run, and then train all users on the diverencies.

That will cost the IT budget for the next 12 months so just isn't going to happen!!

What is a more likely scenario here is that they will (and are about the expand again) because of timings they are going to end up with around 5 Vista Desktops, when they hit the problem above of temps trying to use these and not being able to remeber the diffencies between systems. Then they are going to be forced to change all Dekstops to Vista. In forcing them they will nag me endlessly about why did MS change things. etc

OK now I love the ne UI in vista and finding things are a lot easier. I have also shown many of customer Vista and Office 2007 as I run these on my Laptop. Put it bluntly, most either love or like the ribbon etc and the other changes in Office. A relatively easy sell when it comes to it. Windows is just a vehicle that allows the box of electronic bits and pieces to do things. They are comfortable with it, they haven't had many (and mostly no) issues with security it is reliable, and what they use on a daily basis can be pinned to the start menu.

They have no or little use of new search features.

I have no customer currently who have seen this combo that will wait 2 or 3 month before purchase they are saying we will wait until SP 1 to come out.

This is the real picture and I don't believe anyone in MS UK is seeing the real picture that is both the SBS team and the EVO team.

And to top this I don't actually believe the SBS team are listening to us. We are the ones meeting our customers, and new prospective clients in this space daily. On top of this we are also small businesses. We will upgrade here early (as oon as it is int he Action Pack) but of course we will then need to keep windows xp virtual machines!

re: Vista and Office for Small Businesses - replying to Susanne's and Vijay's blogs

David Overton — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 16:51:48 GMT

Just to ensure everyone is certain - I am very glad that Susanne and Vijay blogged their views and personally grateful for their enthusiasm representing the community. Without these blogs I would not have known where to start or re-iterating the Microsoft view and hopes for our products.

thank-you both

David

re: Vista and Office for Small Businesses - replying to Susanne's and Vijay's blogs

David Overton — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 16:45:05 GMT

Vijay,

I am not saying you were not being kind. And you are right, Vista and Office make an amazing development platform and we are working to get great applications out there, but this all takes time and will most likely happen at the Busines / Volume License launch and then the Small Business / Consumer Launches. We will have a special SBSC Vista and Office Value presentation in December to share more of the value with you all.

thanks

David

re: Vista and Office for Small Businesses - replying to Susanne's and Vijay's blogs

Vijay Singh Riyait — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:14:19 GMT

I thought I was being kind to Vista/Office 2007? In my comments on my post I did say that Vista/Office where much more of an application platform than any of its predecessors. Most of the developers that I've talked to are pretty excited about the new Microsoft Technologies. However, the new applications need to come out for people to see the real power of what's being delivered by Microsoft.

As you know I've compared it favourably with the Linux Desktop and I'm now running Vista/Office 2007 as my standard desktop.

I have to agree with you on one point is that many partners don't know how to exploit the technologies for business use. I certainly don't! Many times when people ask me how to do a task in Office and I have to go away and find out or scramble about in the Help/Menus.

I like your response and arguments, we need more of that kind of straight talking. It's something, in my experience, we've always had from the Small Business Team!

Small Business partners keeping Microsoft honest

TiGra Networks - The Small Business IT Specialists — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:45:41 GMT

There's a lively debate going on in the small business community in response to the Exchange/Vista/Office

Small Business partners keeping Microsoft honest

Tim Long — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:45:33 GMT

There's a lively debate going on in the small business community in response to the Exchange/Vista/Office