Microsoft still hoping consumers see 'Wow' in Vista

Microsoft is hoping that with some of Vista's wrinkles ironed out, customers will start noticing more of the advantages the year-old operating system has over its predecessor.

In an interview Wednesday morning, Corporate Vice President Mike Nash acknowledged that the initial experience for many consumers was a frustrating one as they found their old software might not work right or that their hardware lacked the proper driver.

But, he insists, the situation is much better now. Not only are the hardware drivers out there, they are readily available.

"You don't have to go on a scavenger hunt," Nash said. "They are on Windows Update."

Just this week, Microsoft said it was releasing three patches that aim to fix some of the most nagging lingering problems with the operating system, including wireless networking woes and USB-related problems that account for 1 percent to 2 percent of all reported crashes.

Microsoft is also toying with a new way of improving its operating system--through its Windows Live online services. For example, the company has offered a photo management program and an e-mail client that essentially replace the versions that are built into Windows. Such a move offers consumers the possibility of a better experience, but without making the kinds of core operating system changes that would force businesses to perform added testing.

"What we've decided is the way to deliver those experiences, whether it's communications or memories, is with Live," Nash said, referring to things like the Windows Live Photo Gallery. "Photos with Vista today is way better than when we shipped Vista a year ago."

By contrast, Microsoft plans to keep its first significant update to Vista itself--Service Pack 1--limited to bug fixes, reliability improvements and so forth

"Service Pack 1 for Vista is not about features," Nash said. "SP1 is about maintenance. Windows 7 is a new version of the operating system."

While mentioning the next version of Windows by its code name, Nash did not offer any new details such as features or timing, although the target has been seen as around 2010.

But there's still the perception issue. While Apple has a new series of ads that poke fun at Vista and the fact that some people are downgrading to XP, Microsoft's Vista-related marketing, at least in prominent ways such as print and TV advertising, has slowed to a trickle, with most of the marketing being done either in-store or online, or through partners.

It's not like I think Microsoft should develop an Apple-specific campaign, but right now the one talking loudest about Vista is Apple. That doesn't sound like a good recipe for Microsoft.

[Maclover1]

For the most part

Apples has been the one to go childish with their add campains. Funny but negative....much like US politics sadly.

MS is netural or business like with their adds. I imgaine they could go negative especially with Apple. State some sales figures, like they have sold more copies of Vista than all Apple OS copies....ever. Or bag on Apple for being overpriced and very closed.

I dont think MS cares about Apple at even now with apples gains, they are still a nat on a rino's arse.

I did a chance to play with a new Zune on a friends Vista notebook today. Very nice upgrade....to the point that the Zune is out of beta. Now if they could only Vista fixed up to the quality of the new Zune software.

[Commander_Spock]

The Story of "Abel" (OS/2) and His Brother (Windows)!

Consumers: Where is thy "Brother" (OS/2) Windows?

Those who believe in the the resurrection and the light (that will shine from eComStation) shall not walk in the darkness (blurred vision of the future - FUD) that comes from Redmond!

[Renegade Knight]

WOW vs. WOW

WoW with Vista comes in two forms. It has some nice tools and the new interface is pretty nice.

But then as you slam your head on your desk trying to get things to work another form of Vista WoW comes up.

A simple example. There is a new error manager. I'm still not sure how it's accessed, but every now and then Vista pops up a window that askes if it should check for solutions to probems. I say yes, it makes some reccomendations none of which work. But it's pretty cool. I have problems that I didn't know I had. I can also see that my Media Center has broken 300 times in less than a year and that none of the solutions fixed the problem. 300+ problems and no solution. WOW.

[ppgreat]

The Wow has Gone and Went

Granted there are a few folks out there who like Vista, some who
just accept the fact that it shipped with their machines and live with
it, and a lot who went back to XP like myself.

But Wow? Nope. You could hear the balloon deflating on the
marketing campaign shortly after the critics got a hold of it and it
was released to the wild.

[RTFM]

Gawd it never ends...

Just treat an OS as a tool. You use whatever does the job best for your specific task. I am actively using every major OS out there and personally don't care or have a preference other than having an "industry standard" browser to access my online information.

[Silver_2000]

Too slow -

After supporting Windows for 15 years or so, myself and most of my colleagues have decided that even on the new fast hardware - its just TOO damned slow . Ignoring all the other complaints about it - on a NEW pc with fast processor - fast drive and 3 gb of ram it takes WAY To long to do simple things.
My recommendation is to avoid it
Doug

[Dachi]

It matters not really

Statistics are never perfect, but there are some here:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

So while Apple and Linux have both seen huge improvements over the last few years and people really seem not to care for Vista, where are we now?

Well, Apple and Linux are still basically the same at 3.3% - 3.9% and vista is adoption is slow, but inevitable.

Vista has been out long enough that if it was going to cause some kind of a market shift to OSX/Linux we would have seen it by now.

[close5828]

I agree

I have two notebooks, one is a Core Duo 1.66 w/ 1GB of RAM running Windows XP and the other is a Turion 2Ghz w/ 2GB RAM running Vista--the Vista machine lags horribly behind the XP machine on everything from boot time to shutdown time.

Also, applications are dog-slow on it.

Some say "the hardware needs to catch up w/ the software" but if that is the case, who is going to buy a computer?

My Vista machine is going on eBay soon...

[AppleRocks1963]

More like

consumers are seeing and feeling the OW in using vista. What a POS.

[AppleRocks1963]

Do you know when Vista performs best?

When it's shut off. LOL

[Lee in San Diego]

How wow now?

When I saw the headline I immediately thought of Cardinal Glick's
"Catholicism Wow!" PR campaign in the move Dogma.

[MSSlayer]

The wow starts, umm sometime

It has years of work before it rises to the level of 'ho-hum'. But even that is better then listening to the retching is causes.

[amigabill]

I'd prefer XP

Sorry MS, but I'd prefer a new laptop with XP instead of Vista. I am looking for one, but I am looking for XP, and I'm unhappy that this is so hard to get. I've delayed my purchase because of it, else I'd have bought one a few months ago. I think I know what laptop I want, but I'm waiting for reviews of battery life to come out, and to hear if it can be used with XP and XP drivers reasonably well.

[dcs42441]

Typical O/S problem

I'm a reseller and I've been working with Microsoft OS's since DOS v1.0 and here is the truth: Almost every other OS from MS is simply not good. DOS 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 all need a .1 version (2.1 etc.) to fix the many problems. Windows versions ME and Vista fit into that category as well in my opinon. I'm very disappointed in Vista and things either don't work the same or are hard to find for no apparent reason. I guess having a moving waterfall in your background is wonderful but lack of drivers and goofy networking is a high price to pay for it.

[bobmartinez]

Problem with Vista

The essential problem with Vista is not that the old software might not work right or that the hardware lacks the correct driver (although both of these are real problems), but that the entire look and feel of the operating system has been needlessly changed, imposing a major relearning burden on most of us. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, or at least provide a one click option to revert to the look and feel of XP. Quite simply, I have neither the time not the interest to change to a new interphace metaphor, incolpudiong the new office suite.

[McBlayde]

WOW!

It only took them a year to get it working acceptably.

wow indeed

[Penguinisto]

Not in Japan they won't...

Apple holds a 60% market share for October sales in Japan, apparently:

http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2296/071114leopardmauls/index.html

[i]"Combined with other sales of other operating systems including Tiger, Apple had an overall 60.7 percent share of the market in October -- that's a big jump from the 15.5 percent share it had in September, which was itself the highest share Apple had managed to get so far in 2007.

While some of the kick from the launch has started to wear off, [b]Apple remains in top place in the Japanese operating system market in November. For the week of Nov. 6 to Nov. 12 the single-user license of Leopard had a 40.4 percent share. The nearest competitor was Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition SP2, which had a 10.5 percent share.[/b]"[/i]

(emphasis mine. mostly to shut up the astroturfers)

Incidentally, Vista is in 5th place there - behind two versions of XP and "OSX Leopard Family" (I'm thinking the 5-pack license thingy?)

Vista will have a long, long, long way to go before they catch up to [i]that[/i].

[PzkwVIb]

I have had the occasional problem

But in reality, I had some issues when I went from Windows 2000 to XP. I had many more going from Windows 98 to 2000. Switching OS's always leads to some issues. As a rule however I don't upgrade OS's, just do fresh installs. My HP dv9235 came with Vista and I haven't had any major issues. Some things are a bit pokey(e.g. patch installation, and calling up the event viewer), but it is hardly worth crying over.

I would have no qualms about using Vista on a new machine.

[mike_pc]

You hit the nail on the head...

I don't understand why I don't hear this mentioned more as the primary problem with Vista. I work in IT and dread it every time I have to work on a Vista PC, because the interface is too different. It's great that they wanted to spruce up the interface to compete with the Mac, but please, please, please give us the option to turn all that nonsense off. If MS had made an "XP" theme available for Vista, I'd bet it would have been adopted much more quickly. There is too much of a learning curve from XP to Vista. I've heard this complaint from 90% of the end-users I know of that run Vista. MS really missed the boat on this one. We purchased 75+ new PCs this year with Vista licenses on them, and immediately downgraded to XP Pro. Many companies are doing this, so stated Vista sales numbers mean nothing to me. Funny thing is, MS probably has the "real" usage numbers based on Vista activations, but they'll never tell.

[Heebee Jeebies]

Vista is and always will be...

Total and utter crap.

Robert