Windows Vista – 5 reasons the Realtor doesn’t need it

What is Windows Vista? Windows Vista is the newest Operating System to come from our favorite company to hate Microsoft. It supposed to released to the consumer at the end of this month.

The most common question I have been getting is “Should I get it?”

The answer to this question is, NO.

Why shouldn’t you get it.

Reason #1 – There is no reason to upgrade at this point. If you have a computer running Windows XP currently you will not gain any functionality at this time with new operating system. I have played with this OS and can’t find any compelling business reason to upgrade.

Reason #2 – This is a completely new OS written from the ground up. No code from XP has been brought over. Well maybe there has, but either way its a new OS and any new OS should be put in the sandbox before bringing it into production.

Reason #3 – Many of you might not have found how to use your current technology very well. I’m not saying you don’t know what your doing, but you are comfortable with the basics of making it work for you and nothing more. Windows Vista looks 95% different than XP. It operates 80% differently than Windows XP. The change is so big that I recommend do not upgrade unless their is a specific reason. My numbers don’t have any basis except from my own personal obervations. It will look a lot different but in the way looks the same. I still don’t recommend it yet.

Reason #4 – Windows Vista is a very demanding OS. Most Realtors that I have met do not have sufficient hardware to run Vista. The main thing I see is nobody has 1gig of memory. Most are running 512mb and some I have seen with 256mb and they are running XP and having speed issues. If you try to upgrade you we regret it unless you spend some money on hardware. Even then I don’t even recommend upgrading the hardware instead I recommend to buy a new machine that is capable of running Vista.
As a commenter posted he is running it on a 3 year old Dell, but he may also be VERY comfortable with technology and is up to the challenge to get it to work. No matter what there still is NO business reason to upgrade.

Reason #5 – Its a Microsoft product and any new product should be treated as a problem child and all the bugs are worked out. Wait for Service Pack 1 for Vista is released before even bothering to upgrade. I don’t care how much testing MS has put into this product. It’s still a new product and needs more REAL WORLD testing.

Greg Swann over at Bloodhound has some things to say also about Vista here.

From my point of view, Windows is the Yugo of operating systems. Whatever money you might save at point of purchase, you give back ten-fold in after-market costs. It works badly, crashes repeatedly, self-destructs in unpredictable and often uncorrectable ways. Even when it works as advertised, it taxes productivity in hundreds of ways that are alien and, seemingly, hostile to Macintosh users.

Even though I completely disagree with Windows crashing repeatedly he has some great thoughts on Windows and Vista.

Loren Nason
Future of Real Estate Technology