Vista Could Be So Much Better

Vista From reading other blogs, it seems many developers are unimpressed with the sheen of Windows Vista, the next version of the Microsoft operating system. There is definitely appreciation for all the improvements under the hood, but the out-of-box experience (at least in the betas), leaves much to be desired.

That is why I love this post from Jon Galloway that first points to some videos that compare Vista to Mac OSX (released 2002). He then lists several ways that Microsoft could inexpensively do better. My favorite quote is this…

…you’ve got Paint.NET, which stomps MS Paint so badly I have to turn my head away and sob.

Comments

5 responses

jayson knight • January 14th, 2006
Add me to the list of unimpressed. They promised so much more, but as of MS announcing what we see in 5270 as the final GUI, it lags OSX by quite a bit. That being said, you nailed it...it's what's under the hood that should have developers excited: IIS7, WinFX, ad nauseam.

Chad Humphries • January 14th, 2006
I'll agree it does look good under the hood, but developers aren't your primary market for sales.

It's going to be interesting to see how they spin this for consumers to give it the 'must have' or 'required' feel.

Haacked • January 14th, 2006
Good point. No point in having a great development environment if the users aren't excited about it.

jayson knight • January 15th, 2006
@Chad: Developers indirectly do drive sales as it's up to them to develop the "must have" applications that consumers simply can't live without. In this case MS has really shot themselves in the foot though as they're backporting most of the new technology in Vista to XP. At any rate, it's really gonna be up to the OEM's to drive Vista sales...most of my non-tech friends don't even realize a new version of Windows is coming out; I mention the word Vista to them and get blank stares back. It'll take years for businesses to upgrade.

Niels Hansen • January 15th, 2006
I agree as well. When I was at PDC 05 I was totally pumped about Vista. However after I installed it at home and showed it to family and friends they were still impressed and want to see the cool features of OS X on my Mac.

What I see is Microsoft is only catching up to what Apple has today and not what Apple is going to release before or just after Vista is released. That is why I think Apple is really keeping a tight lid on the OS 10.5. From the advancements that keep happening to OS X every 12 months Microsoft can't keep up.

Microsoft needs to hire some of the design engineers from Apple. But that's not going to happen! Let me see, Apple stock keeps rising and will probably will split again this year. While Microsoft has been sitting at the same price for about 3 years now. HMMM... tough call! :)