Vista: Software's New Coke

The last time so many customers said they preferred the older version of a product was -- what? The 1985 New Coke fiasco?

Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer said Thursday that Microsoft may reconsider its decision to stop selling XP in June because of customer outcry. About 160,000 people have signed a Web petition to keep XP alive until the next version of Windows comes out. Many users (including me!) consider the current version, Vista, a disaster of an operating system.

Ballmer had the gall to tell reporters today that "most people who buy PCs today buy them with Vista. That's the statistical truth." Well...yeah. Despite still selling limited numbers of PCs with XP, it's pretty hard to buy a new computer that doesn't have Vista -- unless you go to a Mac. Which increasing numbers of people are doing.

Comments

[SteveS]

I think the whole Vista as a disaster of an OS is so overdone. I am not a MS bigot, and I do agree with recent comments by Gartner that Windows is getting too large and complex. That said, I have been using Vista since its Beta release on a home build computer and I have never had any issues whatsoever. I know others that have the same experience. There are things that require some learning or re-learning from XP days, but for the 90% of computer users employ their computers, Vista is just fine. The reason some companies are delaying the deployment is because their is no compelling reason in terms of functionality or stability to move from XP to Vista. Since mass upgrades are expensive to corporations, they will take it slow. I work for one of the nations largest universities which has a very complex computing environment and we are switching to Vista - just imagine the configuration issues that can be encountered when you are supporting 25,000 students. MS does need to react to the move to "cloud computing" and Vista may be their last big desktop OS, but to call it a disaster is missing the real story, which is this paradym shift in computing.