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Microsoft : "We really botched this.”

Friday, 29 February 2008

Seems like Microsoft is always in court, doesn't it? Imagine what their lawyer fees must be. Anyways. When in court, documents arise that you don't want to be seen. This is the case with some documents related to the Windows Aero "experience". Apparently the original requirements to run Vista were higher than what eventually was called Vista "capable". Vista capable means it can run Vista, but not necessarily all of Vista.

The strange part is why they crippled Vista. Microsoft is claiming they crippled the end-users so that Intel could make a good sales quarter. If Microsoft would have stuck to its guns then Vista would have rolled out with higher requirements and everyone who owned a Vista capable machine would have the complete Vista experience. But they didn't, and as Microsoft's Jim Allchin wrote in a private email "We really botched this". This being the Vista "experience".

There are a bunch of really funny quotes you can pull out of the linked article. My favorite is "No one really believed we would ever ship [Vista] so they didn't start the work [on new drivers]...." by Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky. Funny stuff.

So the question remains. If Vista had stuck to the original requirements, would it still had such a lackluster kick-off and low adoption rate by the industry? Are Vista's problems Intel's fault, or is Vista failure squarely on Microsoft?

Digital Journal's Article

Comments (4)

	29-02-2008 16:21
	"Hardware makers will have decided their configs based on market rates for parts, available tech and price points which have to be competitive." EXACTLY. "The more boxes you can afford, the more copies of Winblows you need....." Yeah, so they sort of shot themselves in the foot. Registered

~Antonio

	29-02-2008 15:56
	Hmmm. People who buy budget PCs are unlikely to be early adopters anyway if you ask me. Hardware makers will have decided their configs based on market rates for parts, available tech and price points which have to be competitive. By lowering the requirements, M$ was able to drop XP in attempt to force people to upgrade. This still implies an impact on Intels sales, but it would have a similar effect on Microsofts. The more boxes you can afford, the more copies of Winblows you need..... Registered

Waragainstsleep

	29-02-2008 15:02
	oops... that last line should read: "those with slower HARDWARE would not get all the included Vista goodies." Registered

~Antonio

	29-02-2008 15:00
	It's completely Microsoft's fault. It's the software company's responsibility to build software with specifications and requirements based on the current hardware's capabilities; it would be completely ass-backwards to make hardware vendors try to support software which hasn't been released (putting the cart before the horse). Microsoft should have built Vista to run on reasonably current hardware, or should have waited until hardware capable of running it was commonplace, or should have released it with the disclaimer that the end-user would need the more powerful hardware amongst what was currently available to run it, or should simply have made it clearly understood that those with slower software would not get all the included Vista goodies. Registered

~Antonio

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