Is Windows Vista really a failure?

Abraham Zurita               September 24, 2009 Pondering Blog Week 4^th
 

  The question that comes to my mind: Is Windows Vista really a failure? I read on an article by Harry McCracken, from techologizer said "people still uses windows XP because is a better operating system. 63 % of people that visit technologizer on a windows pc do so, on windows XP, versus 37 % who uses Vista". Even do there are many conflicts between the questions on rather if it is a failure or not, many people agree that it was a lack of marketing and a bad product itself from Vista that drove Microsoft to launch a new operating system, Windows 7 which in any case, actually, people are waiting anxiously for it. I wonder why an organization so big and with so many resources did little to fix or resurrect Vista; we will have to look at the company history, business practices, tactics and marketing to come to a conclusion.

It is my opinion that Microsoft thinks they can just foist anything they want on users. The Vista era didn't really make an impact, other than to tick off a lot of users like Mr. Steve W. a CIO Blogger said: "Our Company in all fairness tried it. It crashed our computers repeatedly, and is slow and inefficient. It is our opinion that this program was change for change sake. We had to dump vista and return to XP with which we never had problems. In fact, we had to dump one computer because of the vista danger. We have made corporate decisions to switch to Mac. Their systems work so much more efficiently." So, more and more there are costumers that are thinking on the "other" options' to OS, and that, could mean big trouble for Microsoft. Mac can take this to their advantage and push their products to angry costumers of Vista and gain a whole wide market for their benefit.

That s why there is an important part of any business and it is call Feedback and customer service, to prevent the loss of customer trust and sales. This two are great tools to gather information or database, and quickly establish a way to improve the product or fix it, for the customers' sake. I think Microsoft forgot their clients and abandon them in the limbo of Vista. Since they did not have a good system or database in place to hear their customers complains and resolved them. That's way there is many dissatisfaction and criticism for Vista. They did not use the information, apply it to a good database or analyzed. So that they could portrait Vista as the best OS in the market, but the Windows Vista era never happen. That's why, in my opinion windows Vista is a failure.

On todays market there is a lot of competition concerning a product or a service, the need for companies to change it's way of business is inevitable, that's why it's so important to choose the right tools to drive a successful business. One of those tools is the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), "the most important development in the corporate use of information technology "(Devemport , 1998). There are a handful of products available that offer these services. The need for selecting this part of an organization is crucial.

Companies like ADP, Microsoft Dynamics, Sap, Lawson, Syspro, and many more, fight to offer their companies what they need. Which is help automate and stream line financial, customer relationships and supply chain process. In order to implement a success ARP system, there is the need to research the CSF's (Critical Success Factors), but here are some of the CSF's according to H. Ankkerman in his study on vicious and virtuous cycles in ERP implementation. Top management support, project team competence, interdepartmental co-operation, clear goals and objectives, project management, interdepartmental communication, management of expectation, project champion, vendor support and more.., but to him the most important of these are :

That way we can implement the right system and run it succefully, but also without the customer there is no business. According to a study by Yuling Fang, City University of Hong Kong, we learn that there is a level of concern a customer has when shopping online, "Fears" surrounding the internet as a place to do business still hinders the use of it for e-commerce purposes, but the presence of a reputable agent might in some manner mitigate this risk. We have to offer security along with the product and a sense of responsibility when handling customers information, that's why many organizations have implemented different security systems (company polices, software, passwords, and biometrics) to prevent any lack of distrust from their customers.

So we can see that as much as we want easy access to the customers and manageble information for our employees and vendors, implementing a new ERP system will not work if we do not choose the right ERP software, improve the communication and co-operation between the different departments and vendors, have the total support from the management and have the right security systems in place for our organization and customers, that way we will have the trust and confidence to deliver or products and services for a successful business.

“you need to be a jack of all trades and a master of one

I like what
Mr. McReynolds said: "you need to be a jack of all trades and a master of one". Not only obtaining the associates degree, but seeking extra value, by getting a certificate on a specific certification. Which I can apply to my new life, as a student at lds Business College. Even when I have not been in school for the last 7 years, I feel that my experiences as a missionary and personal events in my life are going to help me gather, the necessary skills I need to succeed in my goal to achieve higher education. And the idea to gather all the knowledge and the skills that I will learn trough the semester to finally meet my ultimate goal which is to obtain a college degree in Information systems.

Obtaining that degree is going to help me understand why companies need people with the training and the skills to improve their business. In a world clouded with thousands of different products or services that are offer to their customers. How I am going to help them by improving their services and products, finding the right markets by gathering data, transforming it to information and using it to ultimately delivering what the customers really wants from that specific brand. For example, I used to work for the automobile business for many years in which I notice that there was a big need for easy access to the public for information about repairing vehicles, that information is only access by the dealer at a high cost. That's why they charge a lot of money to repair the vehicles, and they always try to gather information thought surveys from recent and past costumers that 60% of the time don't answer or just won't come back to the dealer, but if they made access possible through a simple base website, they can offer the real information that the customers are looking for, about their vehicles and at the same time gathering extremely important information to improve their products and services.

By acquiring these skills I can like they said" sell myself for the best price, not just by the degree but for the actual value of the knowledge and skills that I will obtain as a person. In this time of "reseccion" were the values, moral and honor code are broken we need to stand our ground, stand taller and like the bears show the wolf, who is in charge and not afraid to fight back at the corruption of easy money, and show them that I am not only mean business but I will protect those systems for which I will work so hard.