Surveying, Mapping and GIS

I am actually not afraid to admit I am one who likes Microsoft products, a .NET developer, a Microsoft Registered Partner, a user of MS Office, Project, SQL Server, Exchange and so much more - and one who generally likes their vision and model... but sometimes it seems a juggernaut run amok.

BUT... while I'm on the topic of ranting, yesterday I went out to pick up another laptop, and was amazed to find that all of the local retailers only carry boxes with Vista (and generally some flavor of Vista Home to boot) - and no XP on any of the boxes in stock.

I was one of the Vista beta users, and readily admit I did not have any serious problems with it, but nonetheless am not yet ready to be flung headlong into adopting the new technology for any production machines. And further, I don't want to be bothered with half-crippled "Home" versions of much of anything.

I was happy with the model of shipping machines with XP along with a Vista upgrade certificate, but was surprised to see that this seems to have come to an abrupt end.

The other concurrent Microsoft marketing annoyance I have is that IE 7 is being pushed... hard. It comes up in my Updates list pretty regularly - and this is another key piece of infrastructure that I am just not ready to migrate on.

Don't get me wrong - I am generally on the leading side of the curve when it comes to adopting new technologies, but slooow it down, Microsoft. Given the track record of previous Windows and IE versions, we need time.