Windows Vista’s unfair rap
If you read the popular press, you could be forgiven for thinking that Microsoft foisted a disaster on the world with Windows Vista, its most recent desktop operating system. Fact is, Vista’s not all that bad. Now Microsoft has had enough, and is fighting back.
The negative press about Windows Vista has arrived in an almost constant stream since Microsoft unleashed the product 18 months ago. Some reviewers and analysts have gone as far as to compare it to the disastrous Windows Me, released in 2000 as a stopgap between the dying Windows 95/98 product line and the new Windows XP desktop, which was built on more modern and stable code. That criticism is overdone.
There’s no doubt Vista had problems after it was launched, mainly because too many equipment manufacturers had not written device drivers that would have ensured their hardware worked on the new system. That meant people who upgraded early to the new software found that some components of their PCs no longer functioned properly.
Most of these teething problems have since been sorted out, and Vista is now arguably the best desktop operating system Microsoft has produced, especially after the recent release of the Service Pack 1 update of bug fixes. Yet the criticism of it persists.
Last week, Microsoft fired back with an experiment with Windows XP users in San Francisco. CNet journalist Ina Fried reports that XP users who had negative impressions of Vista were asked to try out a “new” version of the operating system named “Mojave”. More than 90% of the subjects provided positive feedback on what they saw, Fried writes. To their embarrassment, they were then told that Mojave was in fact Vista.
“The emotional appeal of the everyman’ trying Vista and liking it clearly packs an emotional punch, something the company has desperately needed,” Fried says.
The Mojave experiment is part of a broader fightback by Microsoft, led by CEO Steve Ballmer, aimed at changing negative market perceptions about Vista. Ballmer wrote in a memo to staff last week that Microsoft would launch a campaign in the next few weeks aimed at addressing “any lingering doubts” consumers had about Vista.
The company has also gone on the offensive against analyst firms that have been critical of the product. Earlier this week, it blasted the respected Forrester Research over a report which claimed that corporate customers had “rejected” Vista, preferring instead to wait for Windows 7, the code name for the next version of the operating system, which should be released in 2009 or 2010.
Microsoft also accused Forrester of sensationalism. “Given that there’s a mountain of evidence to refute this report, including multiple reports from Forrester and other top-tier analysts, [it] appears to be more focused on making sensationalist statements rather than offering a thoughtful industry perspective based on conversations with IT operations professionals…”
It’s an extraordinary attack on an independent research firm and shows that Microsoft has finally decided to stand up and defend itself against the constant barrage of attacks on Vista.
The company is also feeling the heat from Apple, which has gained significant market share in recent years. Apple has been quick to exploit the anti-Vista hysteria and constantly flights television ads which suggest that Windows users are dorks without fashion sense whereas Mac users are younger and cooler. That sort of message has to hurt.
Even with a more aggressive defence of Vista, Microsoft will still struggle to convince companies to upgrade from XP, especially since the next version of Windows is not far away. But it’s about time the company began defending its own products. Vista is not the dog it’s made out to be.
Windows Vista – give your views
First published as the column Technology & You in the Financial Mail of August 1 2008
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