Microsoft tries to stop more ‘Vista-capable’ e-mails from going public
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 10.3.2008
Microsoft is trying to put the kibosh on more of its internal (and embarassing) e-mail messages around its Vista marketing plans going public.
As Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Todd Bishop blogged on March 7, Microsoft is appealing the decision to turn the “Vista-capable” lawsuit lodged last year into a full-blown class-action case.
(The original suit, filed in March 2007, claimed Microsoft “engaged in bait and switch — assuring consumers they were purchasing ‘Vista Capable’ machines when, in fact, they could obtain only a stripped-down operating system lacking the functionality and features that Microsoft advertised as ‘Vista.’”)
As Bishop explains, Microsoft also is trying to halt the release of additional internal documents to the plaintiffs’ lawyers until Microsoft’s appeal is resolved. Microsoft is citing the time — and money — required to produce internal e-mails pertaining to the case as the reasons it is seeking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the publication of more Vista-marketing-related mail.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft’s lawyers don’t mention how much public-relations damage these e-mails is doing to Microsoft’s battle-weary Vista team.
The initial batch of e-mail in this case included messages from Microsoft board member Jon Shirley, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, former Vista chief Jim Allchin and current Windows engineering chief Steven Sinofsky lambasting the convoluted “Vista-Ready” vs. “Vista-Capable” distinction Microsoft attempted to make when introducing the product over a year ago. Microsoft’s own troops couldn’t get their existing peripherals to work with Vista, as they noted in the batch of e-mail already released as part of this case. And then there’s the issue of the hoops Microsoft jumped through to help its Wintel ally Intel sell old hardware that was barely capable of running Vista. Not a pretty picture….
With every version of Windows, Microsoft has worked with hardware partners to find new ways to try to convince users they need more and more powerful machines to take advantage of more feature-rich software. If Microsoft and its partners were/are successful, it means more money in the PC makers’ and Microsoft’s coffers. With Vista, this pact really back-fired, as the already published e-mails around Vista-capable — and more, as-yet-unpublicized messages — will make evident.
source:
blogs.zdnet.com
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Comments(7)
come on gates, you've got enough in the bank to give out a little for false advertising!
don't be such a tite-wad!
check this out! vista made cnet list for one of the wourst products in 21 years!
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49293700-10,00.htm
vista is a flop for the simple reason that it fails the primary goal of an operating
system - namely "operating your system". an os needs to allow software access to
hardware, that's all. if your hardware performs worse or not at all from an os upgrade
then on what basis is the $300-$500 price tag justified?
if a user wants
features like firewalls and desktop effects then they have always had the option to freely
download or purchase them. what vista is really about is denying you that freedom by
overriding these things at the lowest level - often to appease 3rd-parties like hollywood
or the us government. it's also a kick in the teeth for xp users who will not be able to
use their shader 3.0 compliant hardware due entire to microsofts refusal to support it -
despite this os still being within its support lifetime.
as a programmer i ask
anybody to explain exactly what that extra 1 gb of ram is actually being used for? if it
isn't being made available to your software then it serves no purpose. even cache memory
should give way to the application (as it does on most other systems).
im really confused about this vista capable. capable meant vista was able to run without
aero etc and vista ready meant the computer could run a fully fledged vista with aero etc.
so what is everyone complaining about?
shut your frickin mouth. you shouldnt even be using a computer dumb fook
microsoft should've run a better educational campaign to let people know what they'd be
getting based on the hardware they were buying.
vista capable is marketing talk
for bare-bones crap that is only theoretically rated as enough to run vista, and of course
to squeeze every penny out of unsuspecting customers. ie, don't waste your money, you
won't get anything worth coughing the license fee up for. this means no aero, as if it's
really useful anyway *eye roll*.
premium ready means the system was built with
vista in mind. it'll run everything that's available in vista at a reasonable level of
performance for most people, at least theoretically. premium ready systems have at least
the true minimum hardware specs needed for vista, and everything beyond that will only
make vista run with fewer hiccups.
mismanagement and corporate bloat. i had over a 10 year career at microsoft and watched
windows and windows nt grow up. when vista (longhorn, cairo, etc.) was being made, i
watched the bloated microsoft machine fail worse each time. and with vista, saw them
literally have to throw the code away, get a new vp, and start over. years of work thrown
away. then they started over with the windows server 2003 codebase and wrote as fast as
they could again from the beginning while throwing out all the innovative features.
vista is nothing other than nt with a new coat of paint because of that. and that is
another reason why i left microsoft. i had, unfortunately, missed that they already jumped
the shark.
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By PackedFunk on 11.03.2008 - 04:03