05.20.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Time Calls Windows Vista the “Biggest Tech Failure of the Last Decade”
Summary: Vista keeps earning awards it most certainly does not need
“Time.com” (Time) is known for many things such as hostility towards Free software (it is, after all, a CNN-affiliated Web site) and placements for Microsoft and Gates. We covered examples before. The site is considered what’s sometimes called the “business press”, simply meaning that it is run by business, for business. NBC, which is largely sponsored by General Electric (not to mention MSNBC) is another good example of this.
Given the innate bias of sites like Time, it was surprising that find that Vista tops its list. Which list? “The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade”
That’s right.
Add this to similar achievements touted by Windows Vista. How about the “Great Fiasco Award”, which we wrote about before (direct link)?
Vista also snatched top spots in the following:
- Worst Tech #2: Microsoft Windows Vista
- Vista makes the list as one of the top-10 worst consumer tech products of all time
- Microsoft credits Project for “Tech’s all-time flop” Award
- 10 Worst Tech Products of 2007
- The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007
Vista keeps getting worse by some measures. Microsoft is said to have finalised Service Pack 2 for Vista, but some say it won’t be released for quite some time purely for marketing reasons.
SoftPedia took an early look at this Service Pack and concluded that it not only requires more RAM than Vista RTM (2006) but it also takes longer to boot.
With Vista brought to Service Pack 2, it seems that you benefit from nimbler application launches, and although the differences may seem insignificant given that the improvement is in milliseconds, in a natural environment, these may become noticeable with the naked eye. Consider that the tests were done in a controlled environment, with perfectly clean machines, with unaltered, pristine registry, except for the application we installed for the test.
It is hard to believe that Vista RTM is almost 3 years old. Vista is still so scarcely adopted.
For reasons that we showed before, Vista 7 will likely be more of the same. Linux Pro Magazine has in fact just published the article whose catchy headline is: Windows 7: 7 Reasons Not to Get too Excited
It’s official: Windows 7 will be on the shelves just in time for the Christmas season. From an Open Source perspective, this is nothing ground-breaking: It’s just the same old Windows.
1. Windows is destined to lose more market share:
Windows is not going to gain any ground over Linux. The OS from Redmond simply has too high of a market share for the quality of what they are putting on the market. In addition, the new Windows fails to offer any incentive for the Linux user to make the switch to Microsoft. Even if Windows 7 were to be the absolute best Windows the world had ever seen, in the end it would still be Closed Source.[...]
7. Microsoft no longer sets the standard:
When Windows XP was introduced onto the market, Microsoft could pretty much do whatever they wanted in terms of what was left alone and what was altered. If a program failed to work with Windows XP,
What so do in this case? Ask Microsoft.
Microsoft to users: Don’t switch to Vista
[...]
In short, Microsoft is finally telling you what I’ve been telling you all along: Vista is junk.
Microsoft has actually been doing this for over a year now. First, in April 2008, Ballmer described Vista as a “work-in-progress.” Then, he said users should skip Vista in favor of Windows 7 in October (http://blogs.computerworld.com/ballmer_says_skip_vista).
How many times must Microsoft tell its knee-jerk fan club that Vista was a mistake before they get it.
How quickly the marketing pitch has changed. █
“[W]e’re not going to have products that are much more successful than Vista has been.”
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David Gerard said,
May 20, 2009 at 4:34 pm
But SAVE VISTA is almost at 90 members! Only 99,912 to go!!!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=83481756967
twitter said,
May 31, 2009 at 3:16 am
Vista Failure Log, rejection by users and industry logged as it happened. From editors that apologized and resigned, to disappointed moms who ambushed Steve Ballmer, it’s all there. Vista earned it’s reputation and Windows 7 won’t rise from those ashes.
G. Michaels said,
May 31, 2009 at 10:55 pm
The twitter failure log seems appropriate here as well