Why blanket statements are bad for everyone

Heh, I guess the very title of this post is a blanket statement now that I read it. That's OK, if Jason Busch can summarily make the following statements, I suppose it's only fair that I make one too. At the beginning of an Outlook2007 performance horror story, Jason says:

"Hey, category managers in charge of IT spend. Want to make yourself a friend of the business for life? I've got a secret for you: don't rubberstamp your CIO's decision to upgrade to Vista or Office 2007. In fact, tack on a big "reject" to the request or the requisition. And don't do it to save money. Do it to save your hide."

I really do feel for Jason as he's clearly having some issues with Vista, Office and (in particular) Office 2007. I have zero doubt that his Outlook client isn't behaving as snappy as it did XP. Of course, I don't know why that's the case and I'd be upset if I were him too. The fact is: everyone's Windows computing environment is different because it's an open system. Another fact: I'm running Vista and Outlook 2007 on machine with lower specs than Jason and it's working just fine. I even have more mail to index and store than he does: 545 MB compared to his 150 MB. One last fact: I've run the same OS and Outlook 2007 client on a Samsung Q1 UMPC (both 900 MHz Celeron and 1 GHz Pentium) and while not super-speedy, it's not the slow-grinding machine that Jason sees.

Do I doubt there's an issue in his computing environment? Absolutely not and I hope it gets resolved for him. Do I think we should all summarily dismiss any software because someone has an issue like this: again, absolutely not, especially when it works fine in other computing environments.

Comments

[Mike Cane]

Not just him!
http://mikecane.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/microsoft-vista-no-luv-x-2/

[DP]

For what it's worth, I have Office 2007 on two machines. On my much-lower-speced Fujitsu P1610, Outlook 2007 is OK. On my high-end IBM/Lenovo T60 with a Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM, everytime Outlook checks for e-mail, the whole machine comes to a standstill. I've tried every fix there is and nothing works. Hence, I'm sure Vista/Office 2007 is fine on many machines, but knowing that it can take down some high-end machines for no clear reason, how could anyone in their right mind recommend it without reservation. Outlook 2007 still behaves like a beta program. Fine on some machines, awful on others. If I told you a plane yoiu were going to get on had only a 1 in 10 chance of crashing, are you telling me you wouldn't choose to drive instead?

[Oliver]

Funny, and there I thought blogs were meant to be the place to express opinions and provide advice. Why is it suddenly a blanket statement and thus bad?

[Todd Singleton]

Office 2007 and Vista both perform differently on many systems, such as Thinkpads vs. Latitudes, with default installations using top end hardware right out of the box. That's not a blanket statement.

I've seen tests performed on several different manufacturers systems with installations and benchmarking performed in unison. Sometimes you could see a big difference just by changing out the brand of DIMM's. But I tend to agree with keeping Vista and Office 2007 out of large enterprises with inconsistent hardware. Unless you're willing to standardize the environment for supportability.