JamieG Analysis

Many of my friends have been commenting to me how much Microsoft Vista has failed to impress. Many regretting the day they heard the work “VISTA”.

Pure and simply, Vista is a disaster for most people that have purchased it.

The main issues are…

1. It does not run most older applications.

2. It is very unstable. (Crashes frequently)

3. Needs much more resources then an XP machine, and as sich is generally slower.

What sold it:

1. It looks pretty.

Looking at Vista, its simple a software development project that has been bogged down in history and excess or developers. Plus the fact that Microsoft has not really had a competitor in many areas for years. There is no wonder Vista has taken so long to come out. This ads to its problems as feature creep and complex network implementations makes Vista excessively complex. The main reason Microsoft is so well known for security holes.

So looking at the past poor performance of Microsoft and the general internal view that it has no competition. Microsoft is looking awfully like IBM just before the saying “No one ever got fired for choosing IBM” proved to be exactly the opposite.

It will only take a few key technologies to appear to really hurt Microsoft. One key here would be a feature equivalent replacement for Exchange Server and Outlook. Many companies are working on this right now. Many with open source systems as a base platform.

Microsoft does have its eggs spread across many more baskets and so, has many areas it can focus on. Still, XP, and the SERVER software adopted by most large corporations is the cash cow for Microsoft. If this was to erode, it would erode home usage too.

Microsoft is completely aware of this as its declaration of WAR on open source and Linux indicates. It will be an interesting gambit to watch as Microsoft brings in the troops.

This reminds me of the Vietnam WAR or current occupation of IRAQ. Both arguably a loss for the US. You can win all the battles, but if you cannot win the heart of the people, the War is lost. And Open Source is a movement driven by the heart of the people involved.