Microsoft just unveiled some videos of its ongoing Mojave Experiment, which places an unwitting user in a room with a Microsoft representative and a rebranded version of Windows Vista. The representative shows some features of Mojave then reveals that it’s actually Windows Vista. Typically the reaction is a pleasant surprise from the participant, but does any of this address the functional problems that gave Vista a bad reputation in the first place?

After watching a few of the newly released Mojave Experiment videos it was immediately apparent that most of the participants didn’t have a strong understanding of what makes Windows Vista undesirable, including higher resource requirements, higher prices, and compatibility problems with older software and hardware. It’s highly unlikely that all of that was part of the demo. Plus, participants never interacted with Mojave themselves, they always watched a demonstrator.

The points and counterpoints even on Microsoft’s own blog post are fierce, which speaks to an overall uncertainty in the larger community on whether or not Windows Vista is worthwhile.

Microsoft certainly has the resources and clout to market Windows Vista in a different light, but it could potentially be much more rewarding to actually fix the issues that are making users unhappy.

That said, here are some specifics on what Microsoft used during the demonstrations.

• The focus group took place over three days in San Francisco and was conducted earlier this month.

• All participants were either Mac, Linux, or users of versions of Windows that came before Windows Vista. Respondents were chosen from the focus group organizer’s database, called at random, but then selected based on having a low perception of Vista (<5 rating on a scale of 1-10).
• The participants were given a demo by a trained retail salesperson – geared towards the experiences they seemed most interested in following a series of interviews. While the retail salesperson drove the demo, it was geared by the interests and direction of the participant.
• We did not use some geeked out or custom built PC. We used an HP Pavilion DV2500. It had 2GB of RAM and was running an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz. The OS was a 32 bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
• Of the 120 respondents polled, on a scale of 1:10 where 10 was the highest rating, the average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4. After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave an average of 8.5.

 

But, to create any sort of useful resolution to the ongoing debate, Microsoft needs to connect with informed users with real experience using Windows Vista in the field.

Then again, that’s not Microsoft’s goal, is it?

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 5:24 pm under Microsoft, Vista.

Read more entries by Matt Jansen.
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