Tech: Vista the best thing to happen to the PC industry.

Even Microsoft's usually powerful PR machine - which answers criticisms in the media and on blogs with answers on its own pages or in articles - has not been able to overcome the wave of distaste for its Vista operating system. If you doubt this, just look at blogs relating to laptops - they are over-run with users asking how to uninstall Vista and go back to XP. And corporate users are also simply reformatting the disks in new machines and putting XP on before deploying the machines.

Many WIndows 2000 users never wanted to move to XP - but were forced to by manufacturers of hardware which gradually made Windows 2000 obsolete. ACER, for example, build laptops with cameras, card readers, WiFi and Bluetooth but refuse to produce Windows 2000 drivers for any of them. Worse, they don't provide Linux drivers either. And now, with only a handful of exceptions, all laptops come with Vista ready installed.

In short, manufacturers have invested in the promise of Vista and the consumer has to follow, like it or not.

Increasingly, consumers do not like. As a result, some manufacturers - bound by laws that say machines must be sold with an operating system - are bundling a cut-down Linux that won't run most of the machine's features but meets legal requirements.

Microsoft hopes that it will be able to rescue Vista with Service Pack 1 - and to fix at least some of its missing drivers (not that anyone tells you about that before you buy the machine), poor backward compatibility with other software, and the fact that it makes treacle seem like it runs quickly.

All of this means that the market for existing XP users to upgrade is - er - not going to plan for Microsoft.

Which explains the compulsion for OEM manufacturers to package Vista with their machines. For corporate users like to have the same operating system across their systems so if all new machines are Vista machines, then there is a perceived imperative for them to change to Vista.

But that plan may not be working either: rumours are growing that the problems with Vista are being recognised at Microsoft as being insurmountable and that the next version of Windows may be brought forward. If that's the case, then many users will not waste their money on an operating system that's going to have to be replaced in a couple of years. After all, if the PCs already run the applications that users need on a daily basis, why spend on worthless changes?

And for users, the equation is quite simple - increasingly, there is no reason to change the hardware, either.

Ironically, Windows Vista may just be the biggest threat to the computer industry since computers broke out of huge air-conditioned rooms and ended up as a commodity item.

Here's the analysis: 1) Dell and others simply will not sell you a PC without Vista. 2) If a PC is broken, it's probably the hard disk. 3) The usual fix is to swap out the machine with a new one. But now instead of buying a new Dell, etc. with an operating system that has to be replaced, why not just have a stock of hard disks sitting in a cupboard with the necessary operating system and applications programs ready to run?

The Microsoft PR machine is getting its message out - but it's appealing to techies by explaining some of the features that the vast majority of companies - with limited IT staff resources - simply do not have the time, money or inclination to manage. One of the suggestions in a mainstream internet IT mag is to run "virtual XP" within Vista. Duh: surely that is just a way of trying to say XP works and Vista doesn't?

One journalist felt driven to write " Windows Vista isn't perfect. But it's unquestionably a good operating system. If you still have software or hardware that isn't yet compatible, or won't ever be, then you won't be happy with Vista, probably ever. But if your software and hardware is Vista compatible, whether you're using it at the home or the office, and you're using a brand new machine, chances are you're enjoying your Vista experience. I certainly am, especially now after a decidedly rocky start which I persevered with. Thankfully in my case the bugs were ironed out.Microsoft didn't sponsor this, and they don't sponsor me."

The question, surely, is that if you claim to run 80% of the world's PC's whether "good" is "good enough." We would argue not.

But in truth, what should corporate users do? Answer - analyse what your users use a PC for. It's almost always for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations plus browsing on either a local platform or on the net.

And for that - you may be amazed to know - you don't need any Microsoft product at all.

Any one of a number of Linux distributions will run on your existing PCs without cramping overhead; OpenOffice.Org will handle all of your document requirements including presentations and Firefox (and several other browsers) handle your browsing. They work, they are free of charge and our own experience is that once users have spent a couple of days with them, they don't want to go back to Windows or MS Office. Indeed, people that leave our own company ask if we can burn a set of disks for them to take when they go. Some even bring their own PCs into the office and ask for it to be turned into a Linux machine.

Vista may well turn out to be Linux's best friend - and as that happens manufacturers are going to have to decide where their loyalties lie - with the consumer or with Microsoft.Those manufacturers have to learn one thing: if he who pays the piper calls the tune, consumers are at last realising that it is their money that keeps the PC industry going. And at last they are saying "hang on - do we need this?"

As the threat of recession grows, IT budgets will become under pressure. Increasingly, there is little or no justification for most technology "upgrades." The computer as fashion accessory is looking outdated. Quality and value are on their way back. It's where we were more than a decade ago - but now there are viable alternatives to the dominance of MS - and now users know it and are prepared to try taking the pragmatic view that the learning curve and implementation costs for Vista are roughly the same as for Linux, and so try it out.

And that's why Vista is the best thing to happen to the personal computer industry.