Nov 11, 2008
Debunking Rumors: Microsoft giving up on Vista….
Microsoft announced Windows 7 and are apparently giving up on Windows Vista, the failure…right?
Well, if you pay attention to dates, and I do, then it looks like we have a huge list of failures on our hands, let’s take a look at a few of such familiar utter software failures, shall we?
Here we go, in no particular order:
Apple OS X v10.5 Leopard
Yea, you know I would go there, so let’s just get it out of the way shall we? OS X 10.4 “Tiger” was released on April 29th, 2005. Due to obvious market failure and un-acceptance (note the sarcasm) Apple was forced to release OS X 10.5 “Leopard” just a mere 2 1/2 years after the release of Tiger. The shame! Oh, and in case you aren’t getting my cynicism just yet, “Isn’t Leopard just an updated version of Tiger?”
Adobe Creative Suite CS3
That’s right folks, apparently everyone hated all of the CS3 applications. Released in March of 2007, Adobe was forced to release CS4 in less than two years from the launch of CS3. It offers modest updates to CS3 in many categories and is apparently one big bug fix, why else release it so quickly.
Microsoft Windows 95
Credited for much of the internet boom, as well as being one of the most prolific operating systems ever, Windows 95 was released on August 24th 1995. Around 2 1/2 years later, Microsoft released Windows 98. Realistically it was much like Windows 95, the User Interface was nearly identical. Drivers were compatible and almost all software claimed it was Windows 95/98 compatible. I am sure this should sound familiar.
Apple iPhone 3G
Ok, fine, I am picking on them, but seriously. The new iPhone came out so fast people were flat out pissed that they bought the first one. The original iPhone shipped in June of 2007 and the 3G version (which everyone really wanted) shipped in July of 2008 with zero incentive program to help early adopters upgrade. Ouch!
The Truth About Software
I am going to let you in on a little secret. Software companies are, wait for it… trying to make money. I can tell you from someone who lives inside the Microsoft machine, that when a version of software is shipped, the next version is already in development and the version after that is being planned. I am not exaggerating, that’s how it works. For people to be surprised that Windows 7 is being talked about is pretty funny to be honest. Microsoft has admitted that Windows Vista went through some growing pains and shipped late. All that means is the Windows 7 team had plenty of time to work on their code.
I don’t consider Windows Vista a failure, and I would bet the sales figures don’t tell that story either. I understand the mountain of bad press Vista has received and some of it is warranted. But when the bandwagon got rolling, boy did it start spitting out negativity from tons of people who had never even seen Vista, much less used it. We can thank Apple’s ads that are, to be nice, less than truthful in their depiction of Windows Vista.
The legacy has some really good points outside of that. I am betting it will be Windows Vista that goes down in history as the operating system that brought true 64-bit operating systems to the masses. Go to Best Buy and see how many new PCs are running Vista 64-bit edition.
Windows Vista will also be the operating system that made Windows Media center move from a boutique version of Windows to giving users true, seamless and fantastic media capabilities on their computer, features that you still won’t find anywhere near the Apple OS X/Front Row/Apple TV ecosystem.
Sure there are many other new features in Vista, and all new OS versions have tons of new features, but these two are huge, just you watch.
It’s definitely worth checking Wade!