The IT Nerd

Brad Brooks, Microsoft’s VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing came out at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference and admitted what everybody already knew. Microsoft made mistakes with the Vista launch but they are ready to counter attacks from Apple and let customers know that Vista is “finally stable and ready”:

“We broke a lot of things. We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain. It got customers thinking, hey, is Windows Vista a generation we want to get invested in?”

But much like the Cylons, they have a plan to fix that:

“We’ve faced these challenges before, and we’re going to solve them again. There’s a conversation going on in the marketplace today and it’s just plain awful. We’ve got to get back on the front foot.”

Wow. It’s really unusual for anybody from Microsoft to be that honest. I guess he stopped drinking the special Kool Aid. As for those Apple Ads:

“We’ve got a pretty noisy competitor out there,” Brooks said of Apple whose “I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC,” commercials criticize Windows Vista. “You know it. I know it. It’s caused some impact. We’re going to start countering it. They tell us it’s the iWay or the highway. We think that’s a sad message. Software out there is made to be compatible with your whole life.”

Cute, but lets take a look at reality. First of all, it’s been the Microsoft way or the highway forever, so they’re hardly in a position to take Apple to task on that. Second this is what I have experienced since I switched to my Mac as my full time computer:

• I no longer get the Blue Screen Of Death, nor do I miss it
• Windows via Parallels on my Mac is actually MORE STABLE than on a real Windows Box
• I don’t get the weird hardware/software issues that plague Windows users
• OS X isn’t the pig that Vista is
• There’s no User Account Controls prompting me to “cancel or allow” something
• Everything “just works”

Net result, I have a positive user experience. I couldn’t say that when I was a Windows user.

Vista was the straw that made me switch to Mac as my main machine. Judging from the fact that every time I go to the Apple store it’s packed with Windows users, I’m guessing that others feel the same way.

This entry was posted on July 8, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, Microsoft, Vista. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.