Microsoft’s Vista battle a worldwide affair
There’s been plenty of coverage marking how XPiry Day has affected the home computing industry in the United States, but Microsoft’s Vista campaign is a truly global struggle.
The good news for the firm is that they’ve released an Uzbek language edition of Vista. It’s the first time they’ve released a Microsoft product in the official language of Uzbekistan, the official language of the Central Asian country which has a population of 27 million.
Microsoft’s regional director Aydar Dauletov said he hoped the release would “not only secures fast growth of the IT sector, but also assists the economic growth of the country in general.” Presumably he thought it was taken as read that Microsoft also hopes to ship a shedload of software.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is making a specific effort to build up its marketing in New Zealand (or at least telling the press it is increasing marketing, which has much the same effect). Curiously its local press team is pushing the point that 60% of users say Vista makes them more productive, which is hardly a ringing endorsement.
The New Zealand marketing manager Ben Green has been repeating some of the stats in Windows sales chief Bill Veghte’s open letter, but added some local flavor by claiming firms in the country tend to spend 70% of their IT budgets on maintenance rather than hardware, and suggesting Vista will cut those costs in particular.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for Mr Green: he was the man charged with staving off an international incident after confusion over the internal codename Fiji upset that country’s government.
Microsoft also has problems in the Philippines, where a major national newspaper has just printed a column backing Linux. Writer Chin Wong told readers “the Linux-based system I have is more secure, more efficient in its use of resources—and more fun to use— than any Windows-based installation on comparable hardware. It certainly blows Windows Vista out of the water.”
That’s hardly a rare claim among on-line techies, but it’s relatively rare for a mainstream newspaper to make such a bold statement. For Vista to have such a poor reputation that journalists are actually recommending layman readers try open-source software instead illustrates the difficult task Microsoft faces – all around the world.
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