When last seen in December, Gartner was advising companies that despite the fact that Vista had no discernible must-have (or even useful) enterprise functionality, they should adopt it nevertheless, because it would position them for Windows 7.

This advice was proferred notwithstanding the fact that Vista was being treated by companies like an unwelcome guest at a family gathering. Microsoft, after stripping out any desirable functionality over the elephantine gestation period of Vista, unloaded it on enterprises with the usual expectation that they would sit up and ask for more. But a funny thing happened. Enterprises boycotted the Vista lovefest, rightly recognizing that it forces enormous hardware investment, huge operational costs during the upgrade process, and delivers nothing that would, you know, help them run their businesses better.

Nevertheless, Gartner recommended that companies adopt Vista. If you looked in a bookstore for this kind of advice, you'd find it in the self-help section under co-dependency.

However, I'll give Gartner this: their recommendation was formed under duress. It was based on a concern that Windows 7 would itself be late based on Microsoft's traditional vastly-delayed delivery schedules. So, you should go to Vista in order to get ready for Windows 7, when the rainbow would arrive. So it's kind of taking a little pain today to prepare for pleasure tomorrow.

Today comes word from the D6 conference that Windows 7 will deliver essentially no new functionality over Vista. However, the blog linked to draws a completely different conclusion than I do. The writer says that, since Windows 7 is going to be a lot like Vista, there's no reason to delay going to it, since you're going to have to upgrade your hardware anyway.

I take a completely different meaning: two turkeys in a row.