Microsoft’s Vista Mea-Sorta-Culpa
Windows Vista: Not as Bad as You've Heard!By Harry McCracken | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 12:27 am
Over at ZDNet, Ed Bott has posted an intriguing item on Microsoft’s attempt to reintroduce Windows Vista to a world that seems to have its fair share of Vista skeptics. Ed noticed the image at left, comparing Vista doubters to flat-earth believers, on the Microsoft.com home page. (It wasn’t there when I just checked, so I’ve swiped Ed’s copy.)
Ed’s wondering if the image is a precursor of the message that Microsoft plans to spend $300 million hammering home in a new Vista ad campaign. If it is, he seems guardedly optimistic that it’s a smart move by the behemoth of Redmond. I’m not so sure.
For one thing, comparing people who aren’t so sure about Windows Vista to ignoramuses from a millennium or two ago doesn’t seem like the smartest strategy for initiating a conversation with said people about why they should give Vista a second look. (It is, however, consistent with the spirit of past Microsoft ad campaigns that did things like tell folks who hadn’t upgraded to the latest version of Office that they were dinosaurs. Me, I’m more likely to respond well to ads that compliment me than ones that mock me…)
And when Ed clicked on the flat-earth teaser, he arrived at a page headlined “Windows Vista: Look how far we’ve come” that’s as much apologetic as accusatory. The page doesn’t seem to be brand new–it refers to the June 30th cutoff for Windows XP sales as if it hasn’t happened yet–but I hadn’t seen it until Ed pointed it out.
After the jump. a quick summary of the gist of the page and more thoughts…
–When Vista debuted in January of 2007, Microsoft touted it as a thing of joy, and many people agreed;
–But “a few” people were unhappy with Vista over issues such as peripheral compatibility and game performance;
–Microsoft has been listening and fixing things;
–As Vista SP1 ships, the company would like to “clear up some confusion and lingering misunderstandings” about Vista and XP;
–“Some people on the Internet” have said that Vista has compatibility problems, and while that was true at first, the situation is much better now;
–Then there’s the statement “See how we’re going to keep improving Windows Vista in the years ahead,” which looks like it’s supposed to link to something, but doesn’t;
–Microsoft is proud of XP, but it’s “convinced” that Vista is better, thanks to features such as better security, searching, and multimedia;
–“There’s lots of ways to think about operating system performance,” and while Vista SP1 performed about the same as XP SP2 in a third-party test, it’s doing a lot more in the background;
–“In sleep mode, Windows Vista draws about as much power as a common nightlight”;
–IE7 blocks almost a million phishing attacks a week.
(That last fact is laudable, but a little odd in this context giving that a goodly percentage of those phishing blocks presumably happen in the XP version of IE7.)
The page also links to a list of ten things to try in Vista, one of which is IE7’s tabbed browsing. (If you’re just discovering tabbed browsing in mid-2008…well, welcome to the modern world of
the Web.) And it links to the widely mocked list of a hundred reasons why Vista will leave you speechless.
You gotta feel for Microsoft. While this mea-sorta-culpa says that millions of people like Vista and claims that carpers are few in number, the company must think Vista negativity is a significant issue, or it wouldn’t address ’em in advertising materials. Its Vista apology/defense shows just how disconnected from reality Vista’s original “The Wow Starts Now” ad campaign–which singled out better performance and device compatibility as two key Vista features–was. It’s been reduced to squawking in public about Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads–which are always funny, sometimes wickedly accurate, and sometimes really unfair. (And which, of course, are for a platform whose sales are dwarfed by those of Windows PCs.)
In short, it’s 18 months into Vista’s lifetime and the company is pretty much scrambling to convince the world that its flagship product doesn’t suck as much as its reputation would suggest. It’s hard to imagine that any ad campaign will be enough to turn Vista from a disappointment with a murky reputation into a beloved hit.
Strangely enough, Microsoft’s current Vista message is reasonably accurate: Vista with SP1 isn’t as bad as some folks who haven’t tried it fear it might be. That’s a far cry from “The Wow Starts Now.” I’m reminded of an ad campaign that the A&P grocery chain ran when I was a kid with a couple of characters named Price and Pride, whose message was basically that A&P used to be a dump but wasn’t as bad anymore, and won’t you give it a second chance?
Like every operating system, Vista is as much a process as a product. Microsoft will continue to fix it. It’s possible that it’ll eventually release a service pack that incorporates new functionality worth caring about, a la Windows XP SP2. Applications and products that leverage Vista technologies and which don’t work with XP will show up. It’s entirely possible that by the time Windows 7 shows up, the same XP adherents who don’t want Vista now will grumble about the prospect of losing it.
But right now, what the world needs is not better Vista ads, but a better Vista. Wonder how much Microsoft could have improved Vista if it had spent at least part of that $300 million on sprucing up the OS rather than a new ad campaign?
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July 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 am
Microsoft should search for Vista on Twitter to see what the tech minority say (not pretty), but I’ve only ever heard the same from non-power users đ
Surely you have to worry as a company when you can’t advertise how good your product is, you have to advertise how it isn’t as bad as you think. More appropriate for Preparation H than an allegedly productivity increasing tool I would have thought.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:33 am
Microsoft never ceases to assume themselves smarter than anyone else, in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary. This new campaign is the old “If you tell a big enough lie, often enough, eventually people will believe it”.
Microsoft’s assertion of their own virtues are simply contrary to the continuing deficiencies of Vista. I find 21 of them for starters, and I challenge them to address them specifically.
http://darkbrownhole.blogspot.com/2008/07/does-vista-really-need-great-ad.html
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 am
I have Vista installed on one of my machines, it sucks. Sucks less than XP in my opinion, but it is still slow and bloaty, and they’re still trying to shove the desktop down your throat in place of the much lighter, faster, and more available Web.
Microsoft is stuck trying to defend an archaic paradigm (the desktop), until they get over it and realize that the world is changing this is all smoke and mirrors. Slick ads will not change that.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 am
“For one thing, comparing people who arenât so sure about Windows Vista to ignoramuses from a millennium or two ago doesnât seem like the smartest strategy for initiating a conversation with said people about why they should give Vista a second look.”
How is comparing Vista users to an ignoramus business user any better? I understand that both guys in the Apple commercials both represent computers, but still, you can’t deny that they are also trying to convey mac user’s as smart, hip, and cool, while windows users are dumb, old school, and uncool.
I think it is a good start for Microsoft.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
While I agree with the point you’re trying to make, I’d like to point out that throwing more money at a project doesn’t necessarily make it better.
Microsoft didn’t pull back any stops when funding Vista’s initial development (first as LH and then as Vista), and a portion of 300 Million won’t make it any better – it’s not how much but rather just how things are designed and thought through that’s Microsoft’s problem – more time and more money won’t make an appreciable dent there.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I think ROBERT misses the point. The ignoramus in the Apple ad is the PC… Microsoft is implying the ignoramus is YOU (the consumer) in their ad. Big difference.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
From my reading and listening, Microsoft’s impending Vista campaign if FOLLOWING a wave of regret from many tech journalists.
I remember hearing several tech reporters declare that Visa was “worse than Windows ME.” The tech news industry spent months beating the OS into the ground.
And journalists reporting on other industries joined in like lemmings. Soon the refrain “Vista sucks” was universally sung throughout the media.
Recently, I’m hearing them say, “Vista is not THAT bad.” I’m hearing them wonder why (sometimes with a little derision) people are choosing to downgrade their new computers to XP.
Why the change? I think (at least some in) the tech media are feeling a little regret. It was a big game of dogpile, and everybody joined in. It was the cool thing to do. One my not be experiencing problems with Visa first-hand, but, hey, somebody was have issues somewhere, so they all felt justified to join in the bashing.
Did Microsoft have some screw ups? Certainly. And some big ones.
But having installed every Windows operating system since 3.1, I had fewer issues with Vista than I did with several others.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
From my reading and listening, Microsoft’s impending Vista campaign is FOLLOWING a wave of regret from many tech journalists.
I remember hearing several tech reporters declare that Visa was “worse than Windows ME.” The tech news industry spent months beating the OS into the ground.
And journalists reporting on other industries joined in like lemmings. Soon the refrain “Vista sucks” was universally sung throughout the media.
Recently, I’m hearing them say, “Vista is not THAT bad.” I’m hearing them wonder why (sometimes with a little derision) people are choosing to downgrade their new computers to XP.
Why the change? I think (at least some in) the tech media are feeling a little regret. It was a big game of dogpile, and everybody joined in. It was the cool thing to do. One may not be experiencing problems with Visa first-hand, but, hey, somebody was have issues somewhere, so they all felt justified to join in the bashing.
Did Microsoft have some screw ups? Certainly. And some big ones.
But having installed every Windows operating system since 3.1, I had fewer issues with Vista than I did with several others.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the ad Ed and you are writing about is not part of the $300 million Vista ad campaign and is no way related. Given that the “ad” links to outdated information I don’t think this could be a kickoff to a $300 million campaign. With all due respect, I think you and Ed made a mountain out of a mole hill.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
You know, I agree that Windows does a lot of things really well; I still use a PC with XP Pro on it, and I find a lot of value in it. But I agree Harry, trying to sell me on Vista by telling me I’m ignorant is not the best approach. And I will say this, regarding “ââIn sleep mode, Windows Vista draws about as much power as a common nightlightâ;” – that’s a load of crap.
I bought a Vista Vaio from Costco about 1 1/2 years ago. I would leave it charging over night, check my email in the morning, and then put it in sleep mode (sleep, not hibernate). By the time I got to work an hour later, my battery was down 25%. That computer was what pushed me to Mac, and I love my MacBook (though as I said, I still find value in my XP desktop.)
I wish they’d give up the ghost and move on to Windows 7.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Well, Mac was up (mid 90s), then PCs were up (late 90s), then things evened out (early 2000s), and now Mac has a bit of an edge merely because Vista was probably prematurely launched. I feel that this misses the point, though. The point, to me, is, I didn’t know that PC Guy was into nude hang-gliding:
http://theavocadopapers.typepad.com/avocadoblog/2008/07/different-think.html
June 19th, 2009 at 5:35 am
I’m surprised that MS actually spend that much money in the Vista campaign considering that Windows 7 was about to be released a year later.