Apparently Microsoft isn’t happy with sales of its new operating system, Vista. The company is saying that the slow sales are likely due to pirates. I think that this is far from reality. Unfortunately it’s proof that the largest manufacturer of software has painfully lost sight of their consumers. (Fortunately, they’ve got companies and end users in such a bind that it’s merely a matter of time before we all will have to upgrade.)
I think Vista sales are slow for a few other factors. Here’s my list of reasons I’ve not upgraded:
- I don’t want to buy a new computer right now. I don’t know much about Vista, but I’ve heard that most PC’s require upgrades to their hardware to be Vista ready.
- They’ve not shown me a single reason to upgrade. Other than the announcement proclaiming it was available, I’ve not heard of a single reason I need to upgrade. Why are they expecting me to want a product they haven’t told me anything about?
- Microsoft has trained people to wait for a while. Millennium was an awful product. I remember the first releases of XP as being better, but when they finally settled on service pack 2, all was better in the world.
It doesn’t have the two options I really want. I really want the option of opting out of Internet Explorer and still being able to use other Office products. I want Firefox as my only web browser and I want iTunes as my sole media player. I highly doubt they’ve allowed that to happen as both IE7 and Media Player 11 were redesigned to look slick in Vista.
I’m not saying I won’t ever upgrade to Vista, they just haven’t yet given me a compelling reason to do so. And this has nothing to do with my supposed man-crush on the iMac. Though if someone wants to send me one… e-mail me and I’ll let you know the address to have it delivered to.
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