Stephen Fry pans Vista
When Microsoft launched its ‘I’m a PC’ campaign in the United Kingdom it chose not to approach British celebrities for endorsements. Given a spectacularly foul-mouthed anti-Vista tirade by actor Stephen Fry, that may have been a smart idea.
Fry is a self-confessed computer and gadget enthusiast and is popularly reported as having been the second ever person in the UK to import an Apple Mac (after sci-fi writer Douglas Adams). But late last night it appears he lost a lot of that enthusiasm while running his first Vista computer.
Within the space of an hour he posted eight times to his Twitter account getting increasingly angry at the difficulty he had adding a Sony Vaio to a network, at one point ranting:
I have nine macs!!!!!! I don’t need another fucking mac. I just want ONE ARSING PC that isn’t complete SHIT
After going on to describe Vista in terms even we at Blorge would blush to repeat, he apologized to followers:
Forgive intemperate language, but every time I buy a PC they’re worse, not better than they were before and it makes me so angry I could kill
Apparently having been calmed down he finished his posts for the night by saying:
Still taking deep breaths. Thank you all for your concern. The Vista devil spoke thru me and it wasn’t pretty. X
It’s not the first time Fry has attracted attention for tech-related Twitter posts. A couple of weeks ago he wrote of the BlackBerry storm:
Shockingly bad. I mean embarrassingly awful. Such a disappointment. Rushed out unfinished. What a pity.
The response was so strong that the BBC even asked “Can Stephen Fry kill a gadget?”, a prospect that apparently frightened Fry immensely.
Still, given Fry’s rare status to the British public as a widely-loved intellectual, Apple would be crazy not to even attempt to put together a 30-second commercial that simply consists of him ranting about Vista.
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December 9th, 2008
Well…I guess he will never get invited to Redmond.
December 9th, 2008
He won’t get to shake Steve Ballmer’s hand, either …
December 17th, 2008
It should also be remembered that he suffers badly from being bipolar (used to be called manic depression.) He has stated this many times and did a TV documentary on his and other sufferers’ problems.
That outburst of rage followed by a slightly shamefaced period is not untypical of a bipolar personality. And Stephen Fry would be the first to admit it.
December 28th, 2008
Fry is too far brainwashed into his lazy one track OSing mind, and to push that old halfwitted dog into OS software adventurism would kill him.
As for XPers switching, too little money for new hardware, dumber/lazier users, boomers are retiring on fixed incomes, Vista is harder to pirate, and a major recesssion is here = less new Vista users. Rumored Windows Tribulation 7 coming out next year will be like pissing gas on a financial forest fire. OS messiahs have yet to exist and record debt holders aren’t going to buy upgrades. The M$ fix is done by lowering market prices on current products, which does not include flushing more money down the rathole on new glitz destined to bomb.
Coming next summer AMD goes poof,
Doc