Bad System, Bad Decisions
The New York Times has an article written by Randall Stross looking at the latest class-action lawsuit filed against Microsoft. Stross looks at the internal memos written by Microsoft executives and analyzes what has gone wrong with Vista. Put simply, people are not buying Vista in droves - and Microsoft did this to themselves.
Then there’s Mike, who buys a laptop that has a reassuring “Windows Vista Capable” logo affixed. He thinks that he will be able to run Vista in all of its glory, as well as favorite Microsoft programs like Movie Maker. His report: “I personally got burned.” His new laptop — logo or no logo — lacks the necessary graphics chip and can run neither his favorite video-editing software nor anything but a hobbled version of Vista. “I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.
It turns out that Mike is clearly not a naïf. He’s Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management. And Jon, who is dismayed to learn that the drivers he needs don’t exist? That’s Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer. And Steven, who reports that missing drivers are anything but exceptional, is in a good position to know: he’s Steven Sinofsky, the company’s senior vice president responsible for Windows.
Their remarks come from a stream of internal communications at Microsoft in February 2007, after Vista had been released as a supposedly finished product and customers were paying full retail price. Between the nonexistent drivers and PCs mislabeled as being ready for Vista when they really were not, Vista instantly acquired a reputation at birth: Does Not Play Well With Others.
My daughter needed a new laptop and it came preloaded with Vista. It is a super-whamadyne dual core machine with only(!) a gigabyte of RAM - and it "runs" at a crawl. Literally slower than an old P-III laptop with a half gig of memory that I have. Her machine is fully capable of running Vista - and it is still slow as all heck. Despite cutting the price of Vista, Microsoft is not likely to see this operating system become a huge success.
Geek Stuff | Gaius Monday, 10 March , 2008
By daveinboca, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 4:43 am
Vista is the end result of Gates’ interminable greed and the inverted pyramid he set up to grab income at every opportunity. Now he’s spent five years developing junk, and the consumers are flocking to Apple. I just bought an Apple with Leopard pre-installed and it works like a charm.
Now I finally understand why I’ve always hated Gates. My old PC sits with Windows XP and now I’m an Apple fan.
By IanY77, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:07 am
Microsoft has always treated it’s users as glorified Q&A testers. Put out a buggy product, and wait for the stream of complaints to know what needs fixing. When there was no other option out there, this worked. Now that Linux is more user friendly, and Apple has come on strong, this is hurting MS. Speaking for myself, I’ve since wised up to their tactics, and will never purchase any MS product until at least Service Pack 1. In this case, I’m still not touching Vista. As I understand it, MS is working on a new OS. Until then, I’m hanging on to XP, and I’ll wait. I have to say, I would mind that "release now, fix later" approach if the product wasn’t priced at a premium. Reward the early adopters, don’t punish them.
By IanY77, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:09 am
"I have to say, I wouldn’t mind that "release now, fix later" approach if the product wasn’t priced at a premium. "…sorry
By Bleepless, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 12:39 pm
Mark my words, we’ll find out that Karl Rove is behind it.
By sam, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Since I am still using XP on my newly upgraded home desktop and have no plans to get Vista, I guess I won’t see any coupons from the class action lawsuit.Oh, and I’m planning on buying an Eee PC with Linux as soon as I get some extra cash.
By curtis kreutzberg, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 7:04 pm
Vista is a great platform, yes it requires lots of resources but hardware is cheap. As with all new machines(except HP and IBM business machines), it’s the bloatware that comes with new machines that slows eveything down.I’ve built and installed several systems now and they’ve all been rock solid(some driver hassles though). You can build a very capable vista box for under $500, that will boot up in less than 60 seconds.
By Gaius, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 7:23 pm
My daughter’s computer has almost nothing on it other than the Vista and Office, an antivirus and the DVD player software. It still takes forever to boot.
By crosspatch, Monday, 10 March , 2008 @ 8:48 pm
I find it interesting that people’s behaviors are so much different from "Back in the Day". "Back in the Day" Win98 caused people to have to upgrade to Pentiums with loads of RAM because it ran too slow. Then when Windows 2000 came out, people naturally expected to upgrade their systems again. The thing is, with Vista, people for some reason aren’t as prepared as they used to be to go out and buy new hardware to support the OS. It used to be the Microsoft was a windfall to the computer manufacturers every time they released a new OS. It doesn’t seem to be that way with Vista for some reason.