Vista class action suit has embarrassed Microsoft
By Jonathan Schlaffer
It all goes back to the Vista Capable “certification” program that Microsoft labeled all those computers with that couldn’t run the advanced features of Vista. In fact, the company did so to help Intel sell systems with it’s low-end graphics chips that were not capable of running Aero Glass. Intel now has Aero Glass capable chips on the market but that wasn’t the case when Vista released. The program helped Microsoft sell Vista and Intel sell it’s useless chips. Microsoft is now facing what could be its largest and most damaging court case ever.
The company has appealed the decision of labeling this a class action lawsuit and it does not wish the materials in the case to be publicly available. We all know the company messed up, there’s no hiding it now and that’s exactly what it is trying to do. A number of internal emails have been exposed to the public that show senior staff from Microsoft being confused by its very own program. Some had hardware compatibility problems and one executive exclaimed that “I now have a $2,100 email machine,” said Mike Nash, corporate vice president for Windows product management; after upgrading a computer from XP to Vista.
Microsoft said opening the case up like this has allowed “errors” and exposed the company to a number of complaints that have little relevance in this matter; it has provided 50,000 pages of documents. Jim Allchin, former co-president of the Platforms and Services Division said, “We really botched this. You guys have to do a better job with our customers.” I suppose that was to the marketing department.
VNUnet says this will be an expensive undertaking for Microsoft if the courts hold up the class action status. Employees will need time off to testify, Microsoft will have to pay lawyers (larger) sums of money but in the end, I think Microsoft is really in for it, as much as a multi-billion dollar software company with 95% of the OS market can be “in for it.”
There’s really no making up for this. Reduced prices on Vista aren’t helping but driver and software support has improved. For some, it’s too little, too late.
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March 10th, 2008
While Microsoft can and likely will be embarrassed from the failures of Vista. They should be much more embarrassed, and much more concerned about more and more government agencies moving to open source.
No one is even talking about the latest defection in the Philippines where 23,000 school computers are all going to Linux. This is even after Microsoft offered to sell that agency Windows XP for $20 a pop.
April 14th, 2008
Vista is the biggest albatross sine Windows ME! What an embarrassment. Invention by committee obviously does not work.