Vista - do I need to dig the knife in even more?

If you have a look at The Register, you'll find a publication with some good stories on it, and a publication that makes some harsh calls from time to time. On Wed 28 May, 2008, they posted this article about Vista and Windows 7. It is worth a read.

Both Ballmer and Gates keep trying to claim Vista wasn't a mistake nor a failure and that they are selling millions of copies of it. Well, millions of those millions of copies are being downgraded (sic) to Windows XP Pro because it is, without a doubt, the best Microsoft-released desktop OS to date. Vista has been a complete failure in a number of ways - the community it was aimed at (like a patriot missile) didn't take it up, they didn't even take it up after SP1 was released, and they are going back to the previous OS in droves. This is not a failure nor a mistake according to Microsoft.

It looks like Bill and Steve have had a little too much of their own Kool-Aid. This is a failure in anyone's books. Even General Foods would consider the release of a new Kool-Aid flavor that turned people off in droves a failure!

It is more of a failure to those millions of people who bought it, wasted their time trying to get their apps to run on it, their printers to work on it, and so on. Sure, some of these issues aren't directly Microsoft issues, but due to the slap happy handling of Vista throughout its entire development cycle, many manufacturers had to wait part way through what Microsoft called "Release Candidate" stages (which, in all reality was late alpha stages) until they stopped fiddling with the core parts of the OS and could write drivers. So, although Microsoft aren't directly responsible for some drivers not being available when Vista was released, well, they were the direct cause of the manufacturers taking so long.

Do I need to twist even further? Since both Gates and Ballmer can't see the trees for the forest, and if they think that we want Windows 7 to be built on the fluff and wastage and excesses in Vista, yeah, I think I just may have to! :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie