Technology cults and how they fared in 2007

Mike Elgan does a good job capturing the rise and fall of technology cults in 2007. Apple? The cult continues to grow, both deeper and broader. Linux? It's starting to wane as its own commercial success has undermined the community cult. Google? On the upswing.

But what about Microsoft? The cult of Microsoft is in free fall, according to Elgan.

It's hard to inspire a cult when you're an uncharismatic market share leader. Nonetheless, a Microsoft cult does exist. In 2007, however, the group lost a lot of members, and those who remain have lost faith. Why? In a word: Vista. This false prophet of an operating system is slow, buggy, confusing and problematic. Vista's main benefit to the cult is that it makes members realize how much they liked XP.

Microsoft has been slowly improving its Windows Mobile OS, and various online offerings, but these incremental gains mean little when Apple and Google are dominating the cultosphere so thoroughly with their respective products and services. The cult got a minor revelation in the form of the new Zunes, which turned out to be surprisingly nice. Unfortunately, Apple preemptively PWNED this whole line with its new iPods.

"Cults" are good and bad in technology. As Elgan notes, they can help spread the word about a product/company and the myopia can help people overlook the shortcomings in these companies and/or products. Microsoft needs to get its cult back. I spend a lot of time with customers who buy Microsoft's products, but fewer and fewer that gloat about them. That's not a good sign.

[qwerty75]

Vista just might be the same kind of mistake that took IBM off the top of the mountain.

[Motyoj]

I used Vista once and didn't like it whatsoever. I bought an iMac and really like it. I used Ubuntu on my old PC for about a year because I got tired of trying to keep it working and having to reinstall it constantly. Computers should be more user friendly and cheaper. Apple's stuff while nice isn't exactly cheap.

[cohominous]

I am a fan of both PC's and Macs and use both OSX and Vista. I love OSX and am always impressed by its stability and intuitive operation. I really liked XP. I really, really hate Vista. It's slow, bloated features make me wish I wasn't an early adopter. I've given up trying to use internet explorer under Vista. My iphone has a more responsive browser. Please Microsoft, fix this horrible OS.