What does Vista share with London buses? No, not being large, unwieldy, expensive and sluggish. Well, not just those things – it's that you wait ages for one Vista and then two come along at once.

Mere weeks before the "we've been waiting so long we're already bored" debut of Microsoft’s Windows Vista, management software specialist Aperture launched VISTA 500, the latest version of its VISTA suite for monitoring the physical assets of datacentres.

According to Aperture chief Bill Clifford, the company's legal counsel advised him that “since the spellings are different (Vista vs VISTA) and the market segments are different, neither Microsoft nor Aperture has any recourse legally”. He adds that his firm intends “to continue to invest in the VISTA brand globally despite the Microsoft transgression”.

Given that the only difference between Vista and VISTA lies in the shift key, not the spelling, and that both products seem to be somewhat undeniably software, Sneak feels that Aperture needs a new lawyer almost as much as it needs a new brand name.

15 Nov 2006