"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

--Benjamin Disraeli/others

Summary: Microsoft lies about the impact of Vista 7 and finally we find out how

More evidence of the failures of Vista 7 continues to be uncovered. Acer says that computer sales are roughly flat despite Vista 7 and NPD just lies about it, as usual. According to this, "Vista sold more PCs than Windows 7 did." That's the headline even (CNN blogs).

Another thing to remember about that Vista launch week is that it set a relatively low bar. Retail Vista sales were considerably below Microsoft's forecast — almost 60% lower than sales of Windows XP during its first week in 2001.

The observation above is contradicted by Microsoft boosters like Eric Savitz at the moment. Yes, fans of Microsoft are relying on the lies of NPD. They try to create optimism. In order to understand how Microsoft cooks the numbers, see this discussion in IRC. To quote parts of it:

"This is the first time I have seen this stuff being advertised on a news site of any form," Oiaohm writes, pointing to a new example from Ed Bott. "Microsoft normally does not advertise these cheap ways of software. It's very much like sale numbers are really bad."

MinceR responds with: "strange way of admitting that Windows NT 6.1 is horribly overpriced and nobody wants it"

Oiaohm then says: "The thing that really threw me was on the charity stuff, MinceR. We got a letter selling 12 dollar updates to inventory to get Windows 7. Then went to eopen and checked and all the licences we had were upgraded to support Windows 7 for nothing."

I then argued that "it's like counterfeiting. It wants people to take the most expensive route they can tolerate. Airlines do the same. As long as they don't turn to competitors... see EDGI."

“We got a letter selling 12 dollar updates to inventory to get Windows 7. Then went to eopen and checked and all the licences we had were upgraded to support Windows 7 for nothing.”
      --OiaohmMinceR tells Oiaohm: "you mean throwing their crap at random organizations and then claiming it's "charity" and deducting it from their taxes?"

Oiaohm laughs and replies with: "They charge the charity normally like 22 dollars a seat for licences"

MinceR carries on: "oh, that's the best part, when it isn't even gratis"

Oiaohm says: "Then do a donation for the rest from RRP for the Tax Man [...] Yet the charity does not get to see any of that money. It's the a true ripoff. It was odd this time around with the auto upgrade [...] I really think the 22 a seat would be a fair price. [...] Price of disk and shipping [...] Comes to about 15 [Australian] dollars in a lot of cases with handling. [...] And 7 dollars to bribe the sales person to bite [their tongue]."

MinceR concludes as follows: "strangely enough, Canonical manages to ship stuff that doesn't suck nearly so much, gratis."

People already talk about SP1 of Vista 7 [1, 2] due to technical problems in RTM. The previous post contains some examples. Well, even Microsoft has begun talking about SP1 just weeks after the formal release; it's like Vista all over again. It was exactly the same at the time.

Microsoft has resorted to more AstroTurf-type marketing for Vista 7 in Australia. As for the management, it will be blaming the economy again for poor sales of Vista 7. Microsoft relied heavily on this operating system release, but it evidently failed, resulting in more layoffs (now confirmed).

Microsoft booster Paul Thurrott plays this "blame the economy" card; yes, Microsoft can try to just blame the economy rather than its own incompetence and public resentment that it earned by breaking the law so many times. Another article headline says "Microsoft Goes Back on Message: No Recovery in the Works"

Whose recovery? Microsoft's? IBM, Red Hat, Apple and Google are actually doing quite well. Red Hat is hiring.

Some days ago when we posted an update about Microsoft layoffs we also showed that there was offshoring; Although Microsoft describes this latest round of layoffs as "global", the Indian part of the company is hardly affected (whereas Microsoft UK suffers far more considerable losses).

Global software major Microsoft will slash hundreds of jobs globally as part of its effort to realign business activities.

The layoffs are expected to be across different locations and businesses. Sources said the number of possible lay-offs could be close to 800.

When contacted, a Microsoft India spokesperson said the impact on the company's India headcount would be in single digits. The firm currently employs about 5,300 in the country.

It's almost a symbolic reduction. This way they can call it "global" when in fact they just gradually reduce the wages of workers. US senator Charles Grassley protested against this [1, 2, 3, 4] to no avail. Microsoft is laying off across the US, sometimes without announcing it. ⬆