Dismounting the upgrade cycle

The first report to catch my eye over the holiday period concerned Austin Usability, a US-based usability testing laboratory.

Its co-founder, the intriguingly named cognitive psychologist Dr Randolph Bias, was quoted as saying that many dotcoms went out of business because their customers were "too stupid" to be able to use the dotcoms' technology.

This is a sarcastic way of making his real point, which is that a lot of the dotcoms' software was not tailored to the needs of users.

I was also intrigued by a report from analyst firm IDC which suggested that corporate users dislike Microsoft's promotion of a never-ending cycle of upgrades for desktop and server systems. IDC's survey found most corporate users have decided to upgrade less frequently than Microsoft recommends.

Indeed, the survey showed that the software giant has upgraded Windows to the new XP version before many of its customers have rolled out XP's predecessor, Windows 2000.

What's more, Microsoft has also announced that it is going to stop supporting Windows NT 4.0 at a time when I suspect many IT departments have at last reached a point where it is stable, reliable and reasonably secure.

Such actions show that Microsoft does not fully understand the needs of corporates, or is choosing to ignore them.

Perhaps IT managers are "too stupid" to understand the need to upgrade operating systems so often, despite Microsoft's encouragement.

Or perhaps they are merely being practical and cautious, because they know that Windows launches are invariably followed by a long series of security alerts. This pattern is being repeated with Windows XP at the moment.

Perhaps, like many analysts, they wonder if Microsoft's new licensing scheme, called Licence 6.0, is really such a good idea. Under the scheme they will face higher upgrade costs if they do not use the most up-to-date version of the Windows operating system.

However, if the upgrades continue to come so rapidly, they realise they will be stripped of money whichever way they jump.

One US user I have seen quoted said it all when he observed that Windows 2000 is good for 20 years - a fact that could undermine the financial goals of Microsoft which relies on selling new operating systems.

But it should be noted that it will be another five years or so before Windows 2000 even approaches sufficient stability for firms to really depend on it. It's not a criticism of the product, just a fact of IT life.

So maybe it is time for Microsoft to find out what corporate users really want, instead of pushing upgrades.