But to save itself with what?

Sep 27, 2007 18:28 GMT  ·  By

There are those that think Windows Vista is nothing more than dead weight, ballast dragging Microsoft down. But the Redmond company fails miserably to see Vista for the anchor it is becoming. Introduced to businesses back in November 2006, with a special emphasis on Software Assurance customers in order to convince the corporate world that the Enterprise edition of Vista is tailorfitted to its needs, the operating system became synonymous with the consumer Wow only in January 2007. Since then, almost eight months after the initial general availability date for Vista, Microsoft has discarded the Wow completely. Mainly because it failed.

Vista's Wow was mainly uttered in a negative tone, as the operating system brought to the table software and hardware compatibility issues, lack of driver support, poor performance and reliability, a level of overall quality perceived quickly as inferior to the standards offered by Windows XP SP2, the nagging User Account Control, features allegedly stolen from Mac OS X and Linux, Digital Right Management and a healthy price for the high-end SKU. Microsoft claims that in the first six months since Vista hit the shelves it pushed 60 million licenses into the channel worldwide and that 40+ million machines are covered for upgrades via SaS.

But Microsoft seems not to be in touch with the reality. A recent survey put together by ChangeWave revealed that 34% of respondents were either very unsatisfied or somewhat unsatisfied with Vista, while the vast majority 45% stated that they were only somewhat satisfied with only 17% pointing to an acceptable level of satisfaction. 17% of participants admitting that they are very satisfied with Vista is by no means a Wow! It is a failure. ChangeWave points out that 62% of the IT executives surveyed stated that they have absolutely no plans to upgrade/migrate to Vista.

During the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007, Mike Sievert, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Marketing admitted that Vista was released into a world that was not ready for the operating system. But he stated that the company was continuously hammering away at the operating system in order to soften all the rough corners and to get the complete support form the software and hardware environment around the platform. But Vista currently has only 6% of the market and Microsoft's evangelism effort is not what it used to be. With such an obscure market share, both software developers and hardware manufacturers are still focused more on XP than on Vista.

"Over 60 Million sold thus far. Adoption rate faster than predecessors. Device Coverage Continues To Grow Rapidly; 700K New Device Types Added Since November 2006 . Over 2.2 million devices are supported by Windows Vista, between In-Box and WU drivers, supporting the vast majority of devices. Number of Logoed Devices exceeds 10,000 and growth is outpacing Windows XP," revealed Omer Qureshi, Microsoft Technology Manager. And Windows Vista SP1 is in the making with the first beta shipped at the beginning of this week and the final version scheduled for 2007.

And yet there is the generalized perception that Microsoft should abandon Windows Vista like a failed experiment in order to save itself. But save itself with what? Windows XP is expired by all standards and Windows 7 is still three years away. The bottom line is that Vista is Microsoft's chance to stay in the operating system game and to counter Apple's growth driven by the hardware and the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. And if SP1 does not fix Vista in the first quarter of 2008, then Microsoft should consider a repeat of SP2 for XP.