Microsoft’s latest attempt to fix the public’s perception of Microsoft Vista is called the “Mojave Experiment.” It launched today to convince you that Vista isn’t as bad as those snarky Apple commercials claim. The site shows a collection of videos where average individuals are asked to use a new operating system called Mojave, then after they finish playing with it, are told it’s actually Vista.
The bait-and-switch experiment gets a few interesting reactions from the test subjects, but overall feels a bit contrived (after all, who hasn't at least seen Vista before?). The revelation just doesn’t get an average person that excited. One person did mentioned they’d consider purchasing Vista now after having a "fresh" look at it.
I find it remarkable that Microsoft now, boldly admits that Vista is perceived as a failure.
I'll admit, however, that it takes guts for Microsoft to address the problem. The Mojave Experiment is at least a creative approach at getting people to rethink their criticisms of the OS. And the campaign is really needed due to the number of people who perceive Vista as an OS that tortures users with every click.
A lot of those perceptions are not based on actual experience. Some complainers I’ve encountered have never actually used Vista and merely repeat statements based on “what they’ve heard.” I do know much of this has been fueled by a few high-profile articles and commercials. I’ve even gotten a scrunched face of disgust when someone peered around one of my laptops to see Vista running on it (my other laptop is a MacBook Pro). I actually use my Vista-loaded XPS M1210 the majority of the time and find it to be a rigorous and dependable setup. It’s mostly due to the fact that my XPS has superior hardware, a first-class keyboard, and is 2/3 the weight of my MacBook Pro.
I have rarely run into any trouble with Vista. I have found most of its new features fairly useful, specifically the new indexing features as well as its hardware-accelerated visuals. And this might be a shocker to most of you, but my MacBook Pro experience has been far from perfect. I have lost significant amounts of work due to crashes in Tiger (less so since Leopard), but have yet to lose a single project under Vista. It has been the most stable OS I’ve ever used.
So what’s the difference between my experience and what seems like everyone else's?
I suspect the difference may be this -- I purchased a high-quality laptop with Vista installed on it already. The experience probably improved significantly due to my investment in quality hardware. There were no initial hardware conflicts or software incompatibilities because it came from the manufacturer in working order. It continues to run smoothly now a year after the purchase.
But, I have yet to upgrade any of my old machines to Vista, and don’t really see the need as XP will do fine for them until they are retired. Maybe if I had tried, I would have a different opinion of Vista.
That’s possibly the more realistic point of Microsoft’s “Mojave Experiment” -- using a high-quality laptop built and tested with Vista (as they do in the commercial) results in a fairly positive user experience. But trying to cram more complex operating system in two- or three-year-old computers probably isn’t worth it -- upgrading just isn't Vista’s forte. This puts Microsoft in a bind, stuck between being unable to effectively upgrade old computers to Vista, but needing to sell as many copies as possible to justify the enormous investment in development. It's possible that the "Mojave" ads may convince a few XP users to update, but I
Submitted by Chris Tompkins on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 6:46pm.
Comments
Great point Chris! Apple
Great point Chris!
Apple has done an A job when it comes to marketing their producs and leaving Microsoft in the dust. The power of those comercials is far greater then we think.
I've never used an Apple computer, I'm going to buy one next month but if you were to ask me to rate Windows Vista I'd probabily give you a good fair rating. I've had it installed on my 4 year old PC and it did a great job but my hardware couldn't keep up the pace. So I downgraded back to XP and everything is ok...for now.
If you were to ask me if I'd prefer a Mac over a PC even though I've never used a Mac you know what I'd go for...yeah, you guessed it, a Apple computer. It might not be all Microsoft's fault...Apple just done their job...better.
I built a computer and put
I built a computer and put Microsoft Vista on it. It ran into a majority of problems, and I had tech support look at it. Microsoft Vista was freezing up once in a while and many of its features discontinued functionality after a while. I was very annoyed and am now looking into XP.