Forrester: Windows Vista is as Appealing as “New Coke”
So the question that keeps getting asked across the blogosphere is why oh why is Microsoft spending nearly 500 million bucks to clean up Vista’s image in a multichannel ad campaign. After a year and a half Windows adoption rates are mind numbingly low! The fact is that no ad campaign can overcome a bad product. It’s actually becoming painful to watch, even for me. Even worse, a recent article details a finding by HP indicating that Microsloth is counting sales of XP based machines as Vista sales. That’s an astounding manipulation but not unexpected from the likes of Redmond.
In another article featured in Computerworld today Forrester research found that Windows Vista has seen incredibly poor adoption rates in it’s core business verticals. Only 8.8% of Enterprise based PC’s were running Vista. Those PC’s, for the most part, were upgraded from even older versions of Windoze, such as Windows 2000 or ‘98.
“Vista is ‘new Coke,’” Thomas Mendel of Forrester wrote, comparing Microsoft’s flagship operating system to the ill-fated soft drink. Enterprises still on the fence about Vista would be wise, he said, to “consider following the lead of Microsoft’s important partner Intel and re-evaluating the case of Vista.”
Mendel’s comments undercut the momentum for Vista claimed by Microsoft, which says it has sold 180 million licenses for its 18-month-old operating system to PC makers and end users.
They really should focus their efforts on building a better product instead of spending a bundle goldplating a turd.
dmihalovic @ August 1, 2008