More on Vista's image problems
Microsoft's launched-but-not-yet-ready compatibility tool isn't the only stab the company made Tuesday to help resuscitate Windows Vista's tarnished image.
The company also launched a program that offers free support to small businesses willing to make the move to Vista.
Microsoft Windows marketing executive Brad Brooks told those attending Microsoft's partner conference on Tuesday that the company is trying to put a different face on the 18-month-old operating system.
"Today, we're making a statement," Brooks said. "We're drawing a line right here on this stage that we're going to do things differently going forward. We're going to tell our story--our story, the real Windows Vista story."
He goes on to talk about the company's missteps, admitting its marketing muscle had gotten a bit "flabby."
From my perspective, Vista faces two major issues. Clearly, there is the image problem. For the last 18 months, Vista has been getting poor press, and the loudest marketing has been the negative stuff coming from Apple.
Brooks acknowledged Apple's impact and said the "sleeping giant" had woken up and hinted at the company's forthcoming $300 million multiyear marketing push.
But the second issue, which is beyond the image problem, is what I'd call the operating system's dessert-to-vegetable ratio. Many of Vista's changes are under the hood. They were necessary things like improved security, a new graphics engine and driver model. Those are like veggies. You have to eat them, but you are going to have a tough time getting people to flock to the table.
Although Vista has some tasty treats, like better photo handling and built-in desktop search, its new features haven't exactly taken the world by storm. I doubt I'm saying anything the Windows team hasn't already realized--but the next time they come out with a new OS, they would be well-served to have three or four drool-inducing features that motivate people to get a new PC or upgrade their old one.
The company has taken a step in the right direction in announcing that Windows 7 won't make any major architectural changes (less veggies), but they need to make sure that their entree is appetizing and that the dessert is top-notch.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
Fix Vista before you market it.
XP works, and works well with the software and hardware I had, and just bought yesterday. Vista works fine, at home with no corporate environment in sight, but for the most part only with the sofware bought recently and hardware bought from near it's release date. It's nothing I needed, and was a "solution" to a problem that didn't exist and offered little to users beyond what they had, but forced them to upgrade or replace hardware and software anyway for only a little eye candy. We'll see what windows 7 brings, until then it's XP and Linux for me.
I hope Microsoft is listening to it's CORPORATE customers the next time out, or it will likely find itself in the same boat with windows 7 as it did with vista.
"It can have issues with attaching to domains, it doesn't like whole components of Citrix, and VM-Ware. "
I find your comments odd since these are area where Vista actually excels in over XP. I'm not sure that I believe you are using Vista in a corporate environment or else you would not be making such ignorant comments. I hope that you try things out with an open mind in the future.
I don't dislike Vista--I hate it.
---------------------
Hatred of Microsoft is a poor way to live, a poor way of doing business as Jerry Yang is now learning at Yahoo.
XP and Vista are used by 96% of the computing world. Vista has issues, but they are not deal breakers. The big deal breaker with Mac is that there are so few speciality pgorgams available for it after all these years compated to was is avilable for Windows. True, Mac sales are up since it was able to run Windows, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Check out this article to see how Ubuntu fared against Vista:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199201179
You can download Ubuntu Linux from this link:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
Ubuntu is definitely the manual transmission to Vista's automatic, but if you're willing to do a little work getting necessary drivers and downloading required libraries to get all your favorite programs running, Ubuntu is a smooth ride.
MS should fire you since your shilling makes them look worse then their constant screw ups do.
If you don't like Mac, fine, but don't flame things that you don't own just because other people like their stuff.
----
Good idea. Maybe you can get Steven Jobs to agree with you and stop those dorky, immature PC/Mac ads.
courtesy:
Published Jul 08 2008, 03:52 PM by pthurrott
-
by Zero187
July 9, 2008 10:37 AM PDT
- Marketing was NOT their problem. Vista just overall is terrible, I had it on my laptop when they gave it to me for 2 weeks to test it out, only to realize that 1 out of ever 5 times I started the computer, my sound card, keyboard, or graphics driver would not load and I would have to pray it would work after another restart. Counter strike would play, but only for about 5-10 minutes before the computer crashed, and there isn't much compatibility for software developers as Vista has too many security layers - you might as well just learn how to code for linux rather than spend your time on something that is most likely going to be replaced with Windows 7 in the next 2 years. By the way, as soon as I put XP Pro on after those 2 weeks, EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING, worked perfectly.
-
Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (37 Comments)