Texas seeks to ban Windows Vista purchases
Windows Vista has some very forthright critics who have spent the last two years mocking Microsoft for its latest and far-from-greatest operating system. Which is fair enough because Vista has been a major fail in most departments. But do these issues warrant a U.S. state trying to get Windows Vista banned?
Vista has been nothing short of a disaster for Microsoft. It launched with major problems, gained poor reviews from previously-contented Windows users and was generally derided for not being Windows XP, the aging OS which still has its fans today. Even though most of the early problems with Vista have been cleared up by two essential service packs, this hasn’t been enough to turn some people onto this particular operating system.
My San Antonio News reports that a rider added to the $182.2 billion state budget of Texas would effectively ban Windows Vista from being bought by any state agencies with the exception of institutions of higher education.
Any state agencies which did want to buy Vista would have to “get written approval from the Legislative Budget Board before buying.” Senator Juan Hinojosa, vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is the man responsible for adding the provision to the two-year budget plan. His simple reason for doing so is, “Don’t buy it, because it’s not worth it.”
He continued:
We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It’s not compatible with other equipment, and it’s supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it’s not.
Rather unsurprisingly, Microsoft isn’t too happy about this move, pointing towards the 1,500 Microsoft employees based in Texas and the $500 million data center recently opened in San Antonio. What does the company get in return for its ongoing commitment to the state of Texas? Having one of its products named, shamed, and effectively banned for being rubbish.
This is truly bizarre and could surely only happen in Texas. No one is going to lie and claim that Vista is the greatest piece of software in the world – it’s clearly not – but it’s not so bad it deserves banning. I wonder what Hinojosa thinks of Windows 7? Will he also seek to ban that when it’s finally released? After all, it’s more Vista-like than XP-like.
For those who are wondering: despite the date of this article it isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke. Proving reality is sometimes stranger than fiction.
Related Posts:
April 2nd, 2009
That Senator is just an oportunist. He’s always using his job title to do whatever he wants, just like in his airport incident or the incident with the drug task force.
Also, when a politician uses nicknames he doesnt worth a cent.
April 3rd, 2009
Clueless moron politician. So stup he calls Vista a “program”. His entire statement is so full of inaccuracies it is laughable.
If I were MS, in response I would shut down my facilities there and take thos jobs elsewhere.
April 5th, 2009
Hinojosa is a democrat… what more do you expect?
April 8th, 2009
Actually it is not that he is a Democrat, but that he is in Texas is the cause of his insanity. And if Microsoft had supported Vista better through it’s hurdles, as they had stuck with XP — when nobody was upgrading to it either initially — the public would have followed.
April 8th, 2009
@RobY
“And if Microsoft had supported Vista better through it’s hurdles [...].”
Vista wasn’t going through hurdles, it was standing on a gallows.
May 19th, 2009
Microsoft Vista should be banned across the US and the whole world. Microsoft should be wiped off the face of this earth… either that or
make microsoft open source!!
I’m so happy Texas wants to ban vista purchases, it has already been banned in department of transportation. Oh, please oh, please ban vista in the California!!!
If Microsoft were to offer a free XP downgrade for Vista premium, I’d agree they are 10% human and worthy of existing!