No Longer Supporting Vista
I have been writing windows applications and managing teams writing windows applications since the very first edition, 1.0 came out in the 1980’s. I was happy to see the leap in technology with Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 Server and Windows XP. Yes, I know I left some out, they sucked just like Vista does.
Over the years, my company has invested a lot of dollars, time and effort in windows based applications. Sure, some of them have been converted to JAVA but until last year more than half were still based on Microsoft technology.
About a month ago, I became so frustrated with my Vista laptop I took the plunge and bought a MacBook Pro. However, the intention was to continue to support the windows based with no official end of life date in sight. That is still the plan, just not with Vista.
We are just not going to continue to endure the frustrations of the Vista operating system. For a software developer, it is a nightmare and could easily bankrupt a company just trying to support an installed base moving to Vista.
Therefore, our official position is we will continue to support our products on Windows XP and should Microsoft cure their cranial-rectosis condition, we will consider supporting future versions of Windows, BUT NOT VISTA nor anything like Vista.
The continual problems and issues related to the way Vista manages its security make it untenable for us.
What about a product plan?
Well, we are aggressively looking at porting the remaining applications to JAVA. Performance is very good on today’s hardware, yes, even under Vista, and because of the way the JAVA virtual machines operate we do not have the issues we have with native windows applications.
Do we give up some windows niceties? Yes. But, there are work-a-rounds and I have made the tactical decision to go this way to improve our customer’s experience.
There are exceptions. For example, when I ran the consulting group we had a division dedicated to writing custom software for some customers. While the consulting group is no longer in operation, I do have a small group who continue to support some customers. For those customers with custom applications, I am willing to commit resources on a time and material basis to resolve issues related to Vista. However, I can show them from our experience they are better off either staying with Windows XP on the client side or migrating the application to non-Windows specific technology. For that, we have chosen a combination of JAVA and C++ but that is by no means the only options.
Oh yeah, as for that Vista laptop? It is happily running Ubuntu now.
Vista is a great operating system. I suspect your support people don’t have the proper training to actually support real users using your softwares under Vista. With Vista Microsoft moved on from a software hack environment. It takes highly trained PROFESSIONAL developers to create applications for todays operating systems.
I predict you will reverse yourself on this because you won’t be able to afford to turn your back on the DOMINENT operating system. Windows has far more installed desktops than ALL of their competition put together.
If you really are a business you are making a very bad mistake in abandoning all those Vista users out there.
Oh yeah, and the only way to get the most powerful application framework in the world, .NET is on Windows.
Good luck.
Jason, I didn’t read that he was abandoning the windows operating systems just that dog-shit one called vista.
I applaude you for taking this step. If more application developers had the courage to stand up this way Micro$oft would fix these problems.
Yes, MS dominates the market now, but Linux and especially the Apple Mac are taking market share every day. It won’t happen overnight but the days of MS turning out crap bloatware and the market having no option but to suffer through it are going fast.