Windows
7 was released in October 2009, to rave reviews and great expectations.
Just as Vista wasn't as bad as the media had us believe, Windows 7
won't be as good. As usual, Microsoft is charging an arm and a leg for
the more complete versions of the operating system - like $400 compared
to Apple's $40 ask for Snow Leopard. Further down, we'll look at the
benefits of upgrading from XP or Vista, but first lets look at what
went wrong with Vista. Has Microsoft learned the lessons? We'll find out in due course.
In April 2007, two Seattle
area consumers sued Microsoft for using deceptive tactics in its
marketing, which resulted in millions of new PCs being labelled ‘Vista
Capable’ when they were clearly not. Early in 2008, the court action
became a class-action suit. Late in 2008, the class action suit became
the Microsoft Vista-Capable scandal.
http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/2008/11/is_vista_capabl.html
Conceived at the height of Microsoft’s hubris, Vista
was a Wagnerian opera designed to dazzle spectators. When provincial
theatres questioned whether they had enough resources to stage the
mega-spectacle, Microsoft and stage designer Intel assured the paying
public that even ordinary theatres would provide an acceptable
performance.
Emails
produced in the class action suite suggest that Microsoft was merely
helping Intel move a large inventory of its old 915 graphics chipsets
which couldn’t handle Vista’s
AeroGlass effects. The scam got rid of Intel’s backlog and is said to
have made Microsoft an extra billion dollars in licence sales. Among
those PC makers who’d shelled out extra dollars for better graphics
chips, the watered-down Vista-capable standard created a huge discord.
When Vista
opened at the beginning of 2007, Microsoft’s box office offered four
different performance levels, from Home Basic for mums and dads to
Ultimate for Wagner aficionados. It soon became clear that there were
lines and stage props missing in all versions, which made the
production difficult to follow for the uninitiated. Even the
aficionados couldn’t make sense of it, since the Ultimate version that
included everything never materialized.
Marketing Mayhem
This
was the biggest production Microsoft had staged since Windows XP six
years earlier, and it turned out an expensive flop. Microsoft’s rescue
strategy was to throw millions into Vista
marketing under the theme ‘The Wow Starts Now’, enticing millions of
opera fans into buying tickets. But all the Microsoft millions couldn’t
stop the word spreading that Vista was a flop. Worse, a rousing chorus of opera fans demanded that Microsoft bring back the 2001 classic, Windows XP.
Apple
was quick to take advantage of Microsoft’s plight by running its highly
effective ‘I'm a Mac, I'm a PC’ TV ads, and releasing OS X Leopard to
generally rave reviews.
Whatever you do, don’t listen to your fans, critics or customers
Behind
the scenes, Microsofts engineers were hard at work fixing problems, but
they could do little about the scale of the production and the
incoherent libretto. By the end of 2007, MS launched another lavish
marketing campaign under the theme ‘100 Reasons you’ll be speechless,’
which included lines like ‘Using Windows Vista for the first time may
leave you searching for words.’ MS also let on that a new production
was in the wings (SP1).
When all else fails, blame the user
A few months into 2008, it was clear that no amount of money thrown at marketing could change the shocking reputation Vista had attained. Microsoft responded by lashing out at its own users, blaming them for Vista’s performance problems:
‘That
state-of-the-art PC you bought last year might not feel like such a
screamer after you install a dozen programs, load it with antispyware
and antivirus tools, and download untold amounts of junk from the
Internet. ... If you’re the type of computer user who likes to keep
eight programs and a dozen browser windows open at once—all while
instant messaging your friends—don’t be surprised if your PC bogs
down.’ I’m not making this up!
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Optimize-Windows-Vista-for-better-performance
Reality Bites
Halfway through 2008, 18 months after Vista’s
launch, some people at Microsoft at last began to listen. They decided
to tell the ‘real Vista story’ which acknowledged some of the early
problems, and pushed the message that ‘Vista
really is better than you think’. At the same time, the marketing folks
at last decided to earn their money and do something original: As part
of the ‘Mojave Experiment’, they invited 2,000 PC users to look at a
new operating system called Mohave and provide their reactions. Of
course, Mohave turned out to be Vista and 90% of the reactions were highly positive.
Seinfeld to the Rescue
Then
Microsoft’s marketing folks lost the plot again when they dreamt up a
new $300 million ad campaign spearheaded by comedian Jerry Seinfeld and
Bill Gates. The campaign baffled audiences far and wide and was canned
after just a few weeks.
Lingering Questions
- Why is Microsoft so bad at marketing? Good
marketing is difficult if you don’t respect your customers, and good
marketing is not made easier by spending millions on bad campaigns
- Does it matter? No, Microsoft will sell more or less the same number of licences anyway – Vista or Windows 7 or whatever.
Practical questions
Should you upgrade to Windows 7? There two answers to this question:
- If you’re used to Vista, which is stable now and performs OK on newer PCs, you have little to gain by upgrading.
- If
you’re still using XP like most people, upgrading to Windows 7 is a
major production best left to those who need a challenge in their
lives. Wait until you need a new PC. That way you won’t pay through the
nose for the licence either.
How long will Microsoft support XP for? At least another 5 years.
If
you want to speed up your Vista PC, here is an article I wrote 18
months ago that seems to have helped a lot of people judging by the
270,000 hits it received.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/make-vista-run-faster.htm
If
you want to get away from Microsoft operating systems, Apple makes a
nice line of Leopard-based Macs. If you want to get away from Microsoft
but don’t have a lot of money to spare, you can always run Ubuntu or
Open SUSE on your existing PC. There are other choices, and they’re no
harder to get to from XP.
