Microsoft backpedals on operating system strategy
By Mike Ferro
The executives at Microsoft have always taken a firm stance behind the Windows Vista operating system. However, that stance seems to be wavering as several of the executives have indicated otherwise. It seems that Microsoft is starting to urge businesses to skip Vista altogether now.
Until a few months ago, Microsoft released a flurry of advertisements and projects to increase the awareness of Vista. The suspected purpose of the marketing ploy was to change the negative image Vista has taken on. As to whether that marketing strategy was a success is still up in the air.
However, it seems like even some of the executives at Microsoft are not buying the company’s line about how great of a product Vista is. According to Computer World, Microsoft executives urged several businesses to axe Vista migration plans this week.
Bill Veghte, Microsoft’s senior vice president for Windows business in a keynote speech said:
If you’re just starting your testing of Vista, with the [Windows 7] Release Candidate and the quality of that offering, I would switch over and do your testing on the [Windows 7] Release Candidate, and use that going forward.
This stance will most likely create a great deal of confusion with businesses who have been sold by Microsoft to upgrade to Vista from XP over the course of the year. Businesses have been asking the question to Microsoft as to whether or not companies should wait for Windows 7.
Microsoft has urged companies to not wait for Windows 7 but to upgrade to Vista because it will make future transitions smoother. It seems like the executives at Microsoft have made their decision to dump all of their chips into Windows 7 and give up on Vista altogether.
It really isn’t all that surprising considering that Vista could cannibalize Windows 7’s sales if it were to take off this late in the game. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft will market Windows 7 and if there were any “lessons learned” from Vista.
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Stumble It!
May 17th, 2009
as Microsoft provides no upgrade path between XP and Windows 7, some businesses would be well advised to migrate thru the useless Vista product for this reason alone.
Thanks Microsoft for designing Windows 7 so it doesn’t upgrade from any other OS version (NOT!)