Microsoft: “See? We told you Vista is good”
While back in January we were wondering if SP1 would help Windows Vista sales, the real deal for Microsoft was to not only iron out bugs, but to mainly improve a not-so-great public image. Pressure on Vista is unprecedented and comes from everywhere:
- Apple which has taken the predictable direct comparison route.
- Businesses and professionals that work there. Even when SP2 had been released for XP, yes (!) there were still those that still preferred Windows 2000!
- XP users that are stuck there and do not want to move. That’s fine of course, but what is surprising is that they treat Vista as a product from a hostile company…
XP was the most successful OS ever, but when Vista-hating users become enthusiastic by the “Mojave” OS -without knowing it is plain Vista- it is impossible to ignore the fact that products are many times exactly what we perceive. Think for example of how most of us see Chinese products or how we compare a VW against a Fiat and you know exactly what I mean…
Vista had and still has its issues, but it has addressed one area where XP had huge problems. Security! Do you remember the huge XP problems before SP1? Or even before SP2? Vista predictably had problems from the start but it rightly addressed this most sensitive issue. And in my opinion it is something that Microsoft did not promote well enough. Microsoft’s new Vista campaign is out to convince people they were wrong about Vista but in my opinion it is not the correct approach. People never want to hear the “see we told you we are right” phrase because it attacks their ego.
But as I said earlier, perceptions are everything and lots of damage has been already done. And I have to admit that in a similar fashion I could do one of the following:
- Find an Apple product damn attractive, despite the fact that I consider Apple a huge monopoly and a dogmatic ecosystem beyond anything else in IT today…
- Find Linux an attractive priority OS, despite the fact that for now I keep my distances because a paid product is bound to be better than a free one…
