Microsoft has said Vista is a failure, not in words but in action. A popular IT blog, The Inquirer says a couple events have sparked this speculation with them calling Vista, “Windows ME two (II).” I wouldn’t go that far, Vista is not full of bugs, doesn’t crash on a daily basis and doesn’t corrupt its own file system like Windows ME just loved to do. Vista does have bugs but not as many as Windows ME did, and driver support is ever increasing.

And yet, they would have Vista be a huge glowing failure. Dell is going against Microsoft by offering the “Customized with Windows XP” option on several of their computers. This is not what Microsoft wants; they want Vista installed on every single computer sold. That’s not going to be affordable for everyone to get the most out of Vista you need a dual core processor of the Core Duo/Core 2 Duo /Athlon 64×2/Opteron or Intel Quad Core breed, 2GB of memory (the 32-bit version of Vista has an upper limit of 3GB) and a DirectX 10 graphics card (to get the most out of it).  Dell isn’t selling as many Vista computers as they would like and that is why XP is back on the offering block.

Another event that might suggest Vista is a failure is Microsoft’s new $3 software program on offer in China which features Windows XP Starter Edition (what’s Windows XP?), Office home and student Edition 2007, Windows Live Mail and some educational software. Around here we don’t like watered down versions of anything so just imagine what we think of XP Starter Edition, low cost or no, it’s just bad. With a limit of 256MB on memory, maximum 1024 x 768 resolution, 80GB hard drive limit and is only licensed for use on Duron or Celeron processors. It’s a piece of junk, period and so are the computers that run it.

Microsoft has not yet figured out that people in countries with monthly salaries in the $100 to $300 ranges don’t want to spend that money on the latest and greatest operating system, hence all the piracy. It’s either pirate or use Linux in developing nations which in China would be RedFlag.

With all the people that work at Microsoft, one would think they would have worked out a marketing strategy that would have worked in these countries by now. They have a $3 XP bundle so why not have, oh say a $10 Vista bundle?

Vista will only be a “failure” in the short term, eventually all of us will be running Vista and at the very least you will get used to it, hopefully you will like it. I use Vista, I like it so there you go, proof it doesn’t suck. Oh, you don’t want to take my word for it… your loss.

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Related:

Microsoft concedes Vista and Internet Explorer security flaw

Security built in to Vista fails

Microsoft may allow businesses to skip Vista, go direct from XP to Windows 7

Microsoft’s Xbox Live Anywhere on Vista more of a vaporware than PS3 home

Vista phones home to check for piracy

Entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 4:46 am under Microsoft, Vista.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.