Microsoft eats its young

Microsoft is thrashing around trying to convince people that upgrading to Vista is the right move. They threw out a "Five Misunderstood Features in Windows Vista" mid last month, got roundly laughed at and immediately pulled that (you might be able to find a copy here). The funniest part of that is where they step out and admit Vista is slow - of course justifying it by quickly insisting that Vista is working harder for your ultimate good.

The giggling reactions caused Microsoft to take that down and replace it a week later with a new version. This has a less tear jerking title ("Windows Feature Comparison"), never uses the word "speed" at all and is very careful NOT to mention overall performance. The first document also waxed on about the badly implemented security model of Vista; the second tones that down considerably and concentrates on trashing XP for its failings.

What? Microsoft is actually putting down XP in print? Ayup.

Remember, this isn't Linux evangelists swooping down like vultures to dismember the still twitching body of XP. Heck, XP is doing a lot more than twitching and it isn't Linux vultures, it's Microsoft itself walking up from behind and pumping lead into XP's back. This can't be good. Can you imagine a politician explaining "I really screwed you over last term, but here's what I'm going to do now"? Or a car manufacturer asking you to trade in now because last year's model has horrible brakes and worse?

It may be true that last years model does have bad brakes, and you'll get no argument from me that XP is a crappy OS - better than its predecessors, yes, but still a poor excuse for anything that is supposed to help you use your computing hardware. But it can't be smart for Microsoft to be the one to nit-pick and gleefully point out XP's flaws.

But desperation causes strange behavior, and Microsoft is getting desperate. If people actually liked Vista, Microsoft could fold its arms, shut its mouth and rake in the profits. But obviously people don't like Microsoft's shiny new OS; none of its confusing versions meet anyones needs and all of them run slowly..

I wonder: as Microsoft has also been touting how wonderful its NEXT OS (windows Seven) will be, is another white paper in the works? Will that one explain how crappy Vista really is?

Naaaw.. Microsoft wouldn't do that, right?

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Comments




Mon Jun 2 20:03:27 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


The reason that the admission of slowness is so funny is that the Internet is full of Microsoft apologists insisting that Vista is NOT slow.. having the Mother Ship flash this in neon across its bow really makes them look foolish - not that running Vista isn't foolish to start with.





Tue Jun 3 13:43:49 2008: Subject: Great for Apple   MikeHostetler
http://mike.hostetlerhome.com

I think Apple should sent a large gift to MS. Vista has been the #1 reason why a lot of the people I talk to are thinking about getting a Mac -- and quite a few are doing just that. I've yet to hear one positive comment about Vista (I don't use it so I really have no opinion). The best I've heard was "It's okay, but not ready for prime time yet." Not ready for prime time? How long has it been out?





Tue Jun 3 15:09:51 2008: Subject:   BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net

The problem with Vista, as is the problem with its predecessors, is that the foundation on which it is built is full of cracks (no pun intended). If Gates and his lackeys truly want to produce a quality operating system, they need to start with a completely blank canvas, and not build on top of old versions. Get rid of the MS-DOS baggage (e.g., assigning letters to disk drives), separate the user interface from the kernel, *do not* allow any application (including MS Office) to invade kernel space, provide a powerful scripting language, use ASCII configuration files instead of the ludicrous binary registry...gee, I think I just described UNIX, didn't I? <Grin>



Tue Jun 3 19:11:44 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


They did that.. and then Gates and the other idiots at the top said "well, we can't give up *this* legacy thingy, and we can't give up *that*" and pretty soon they'd put a lot of old junk right back in.





Fri Jun 6 12:38:52 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


Well, now they've done it: their latest Vista piece basically says you need to upgrade to Vista now because .. Windows Seven won't be any better!

Now THERE is a sales pitch hard to resist!

http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/C/D/8CD43224-5A47-436C-A21E-9DF78F1E9AFC/The_Business_Value_of_Windows_Vista.pdf

The Windows 7 release is expected to have only minor changes in these areas. Customers who are still using Windows XP when Windows 7 releases will have a similar application compatibility experience moving to Windows 7 as exists moving to Windows Vista from Windows XP.

In other words, Windows Seven is just as bad as Vista!



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