Windows Vista wins Fiasco Award for worst I.T. product
Windows Vista hasn’t got long left. Its successor, Windows 7, is almost finished, and many have sampled it thanks to the recent beta testing initiative. But even at the end of its life cycle, Vista continues to receive awards, unfortunately, not of the good variety.
The Fiasco Awards is a new annual event organized by Catalan Association of Telecommunications Engineers. Yes, I know, it’s not exactly a hugely known, worldwide event, but it’s a fun and quirky look at the worst-performing I.T. products currently on the market, and that’s got to be good.
According to PC Authority, the Fiasco Awards are an attempt to find the funny side of the criticism regularly meted out in the technology sector. The main objectives of the not-for-profit initiative are “to share what we have learned from our mistakes” and “to have fun”.
Unfortunately for Microsoft fans, Vista topped the poll, beating competition from the likes of One Laptop Per Child and Second Life in the process. Out of the 6400 people who registered on the Web site and gave their opinion on this year’s contenders for the crown, 5222 (81 percent) gave the award to Vista, Microsoft’s botched attempt at an operating system that is now being replaced after just two years.
The Top 5 worst-performing I.T. products
1) Windows Vista
2) OLPC
3) Second life
4) Google Lively
5) Mobuzz
I’m sure there’ll be some debate as to whether Windows Vista actually deserves this award or not, especially at this point in its life when many of the early haters have grown to love it. Some people, meanwhile, have stuck with XP through it all and probably won’t have a clue whether Vista is actually any good or not.
The fact that Vista won this award is interesting in light of the release of Windows 7 being just around the corner. The general consensus among tech journalists and Microsoft pundits is that Seven is more like Vista 1.5 than anything else. And while most of the same commentators are positive that Windows 7 is superior, there is still an outside chance it’ll be another undignified fiasco.
Related Posts:
March 2nd, 2009
LMAO!!! I first started running Vista Ultimate X64 when I built my Intel Skulltrail system. (For those who dont know what Skulltrail is, its a dual socket platform with 2 QX9775 Extreme Quad core processors at 3.2 GHz each) Mine is overclocked to 3.8 (all 8 cpu’s) and having 8 GB DDR3 Kingston RAM, a 128 GB Intel SSD, and 2 1TB Seagate Sata 2 Hard Drives, an EMU audio production card, 2 XFX 280 GT NVidia GFX cards, and I will say, that trying to run this system in XP would be like running a Porche 911 in limp mode. Vista was first released compatible with all the “newest” hardware, not a 4-9 yr old dinosaur. I do admit its got some serious bugs STILL but hey with a studio computer like mine which mainly runs Steinberg Cubase 4, its 7th Heaven. Access to more than 3.2 GB of RAM makes alot of difference especially when feeding 8 cores. So, to those who love to gripe about something new, which Im sure people will when Windows 7 comes out, newer software loves newer technology. LMAO it’s like trying to run XP on a system built for Windows 95…….kinda reminds me when XP first came out and everyone was doing what theyre doing now XD
March 2nd, 2009
@Joe,
Sorry that no one told you, but the Vista Astroturfers Ball was cancelled a while back, and the attendees have all gone home with their tails between their legs.
No one was ever griping about anything “new” – Vista is a rehash of the 2003 code base, with some eye candy to entice the impressionable and “better security” for the gullible.
Better luck with Vista Mk II (it’ll be backward compatible with Vista Mk I, you know: still full of bugs, flaws and security holes, and still encumbered by DRM).
March 3rd, 2009
@ Joe,
Yeah, the article wasn’t about how good your PC is. The fact is that Vista unnecessarily hogs resources and has far too many flaws. I have a reasonable QX6600 2.4GHz quad core processor with 4GB RAM and Vista installed, which is a decent PC but wasn’t ridiculously expensive. Vista runs like a dog – this article was saying that Vista is rubbish, not your computer. On most computers, Vista has inadequate resources available. BLOATWARE! Microsoft know the benchmark for operating systems is OSX in terms of quality, but they’re a way off yet.