Windows year in review: part 3
As we finished part 2 of this recap, Microsoft had just paid Jerry Seinfeld $10 million in an attempt to boost the company’s status. It was to be far from a critical success.
Some generous critics argued Seinfeld had been given the role in a deliberate attempt to avoid looking too desperate to appear cool. Either way, the ads with Seinfeld and Bill Gates received a brutal reception on-line. Whether or not it was planned in advance, Seinfeld was soon off-screen, replaced by a series of ads which appeared to be a direct response to Apple’s famed comparisons of Macs and PCs.
Elsewhere in September, HP, fresh off blowing the whistle on the way Vista sales figures were recorded, reportedly began plans to make its own alternative operating system.
October kicked off with XP getting another six months on the shelves, while Vista’s Home Edition turned out to be surprisingly popular with small businesses. And while Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer claimed the company would struggle to top Vista’s success, delegates at a company conference became the first to get their hands on Windows 7; cracked copies of the system were available online within days.
Security was also in the news in October with a rare emergency patch issued for a Windows networking bug which allowed trojan viruses to spread more quickly. A month later it emerged Microsoft had finally fixed a seven-year-old security problem in Windows.
November finally saw Windows withdrawn from sale, though it was version 3.x rather than XP, which bit the dust. The Windows 7 news kept on coming, with the most reassuring promise being that it wouldn’t introduce any new driver compatibility problems — welcome relief given that one in 12 attempts to install printers in Vista ended in failure.
The ‘Vista capable’ battle continued to throw up embarrassing revelations, including news that Microsoft had deliberately relaxed its criteria after pressure from Intel, while uncovered e-mails showed a Microsoft exec complaining he’d been ‘burned’ by the marketing campaign.
The year ended with some positive notes for Microsoft, releasing a beta edition of Vista’s second service pack and working with Intel to make sure it had drivers available well in advance of Windows 7’s release. But December won’t be fondly remembered by the Microsoft press office thanks to Windows falling below a 90 percent market share for the first time, Internet Explorer 7 falling prey to such a major security bug that major newspapers outright told readers to switch browsers, and actor Stephen Fry launching an anti-Vista Twitter tirade.
So as we head towards 2009, it seems few things have changed in the world of Windows. Those who thought this would be the year XP disappeared, Vista’s reputation was salvaged, and we’d learn how Windows 7 would change the face of computing will have been sorely disappointed.
But as the comments our readers leave on our stories show, Windows continues to affect most computer user’s lives and continues to provoke strong responses. Whatever happens to Microsoft’s operating systems in 2009, we’ll continue bringing you the facts and the gossip as well as cutting through the hype from pro- and anti-Windows sources alike.
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