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Could Windows Vista proof a repeat of Microsoft's Windows Millenium Edition (Me) marketing disaster?
Several people are starting to ask just that question after Microsoft released a $3 software bundle for developing nations and Dell brought back Windows XP systems.
Windows Me was released in 2000. Microsoft at the time was the laughing stock of the high tech world. It had just been convicted of abusing its monopoly and had completely missed out on the internet boom (well, it acquired Hotmail, but that was it). The Windows Me launch prompted headlines like "Windows washes even whiter", to indicate that the launch was 99 per cent marketing fluff. The market agreed. Consumers held on to their Windows 98 systems and Me sales tanked.
25 Apr 2007
So is Vista a useless update? At work we're still running Windows XP, mainly because several of our applications won't support Vista or Internet Explorer 7. Having run the operating system on a home computer for several months now, I can hardly say that it wows me. The user interface is pretty. It is slightly easier to find documents and applications than it was in Windows XP. But the nicest feature by far is the deep sleep mode that drastically shortens the boot-time.
If shaving off the odd minute from the boot-time is your best feature, something is severely wrong.
Microsoft will tell you that Vista is all about security. But security is a checkbox item: essential to have but mostly a pain in the behind when it's flawed. Secondly, most users are confident that they are safe online until they catch a virus. Security doesn't drive sales.
A second sales pitch would talk up Vista's multi media capabilities. We have yet to see applications that use the stunning graphics that Windows Vista supposedly should offer. And a Netgear media adapter that is supposed to play content from the PC on the stereo won't function, even though both Vista and the device are supposed to support the same industry standard.
Lastly, I'm pissed off that my cell phone won't synchronize with Vista's bundled calendar and address book applications. Syncing requiresOutlook 2007 - for some reason Vista doesn't support Outlook 2003. But I certainly won't shell out $500 for Office 2007. Instead I downloaded OpenOffice and increasingly find myself using Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
Now that I think of it, Linux should be well equipped to perform all the tasks that are currently performed on my computer. Perhaps it's time to create a Linux partition.
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