Microsoft seeks fresh vista for Vista

Suzanne Choney • E-mail

Microsoft is launching a new campaign to try to get consumers and businesses to take a second look at Windows Vista, its much-maligned computer operating system.

Some believe the company’s stronger push on Vista’s behalf is long overdue. How successful its attempts will be remain to be seen, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made it clear in a memo to all employees last week that of the company’s key strategies, “the success of Windows is our No. 1 job.” (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

In the coming weeks, Ballmer said in the memo, Microsoft will start “a campaign to address any lingering doubts our customers may have about Windows Vista.”

The effort comes about midway through Vista’s three-year life cycle, with a new Windows operating system, now called Windows 7, due out in early 2010, or late 2009 at the soonest.

“Basically, Microsoft is trying to use a second chance at making a first impression,” said Michael Silver, Gartner research vice president.

“What Microsoft needs to do is try to get people to take another look because this is what they have to sell for the next year, year-and-a-half, and they need to try to get some of the tarnish off,” he said. “And, on a new PC, Vista really isn’t a bad product, but a lot of people are avoiding it.”

Microsoft, Silver said, has “let Apple run amok with denigrating ads that take advantage of all the bad press,” referring to Apple’s TV commercials that show a geeky Windows guy battling various problems because of Vista, while his sympathetic and cool-looking Mac counterpart tries to help.

‘It’s gotten better’
Michael Cherry, analyst for Directions on Microsoft, an independent research group, said he began using Vista in beta, or test, form six months before it went on the market, and that he has seen improvements in the operating system, except in the area of speed.

“There’s no question over the months it’s gotten better,” he said. “There’s more device drivers, and Vista has become more reliable. What it hasn’t become is any faster. It still has huge resource demands.”

Vista runs better on newer computers with faster processor chips and more memory than on older or economy-scale PCs. Even on newer PCs, Vista can be slow to start, compared to Windows XP, its predecessor. Many consumers and businesses have not wanted to spend the money to buy new PCs and software needed to work with Vista.

Also, for a good part of Vista’s first year, consumers were frustrated because many drivers, or software programs, weren’t available to make their existing software or peripherals, such as printers or graphics cards, work with Vista.

After years of criticism that Windows was too vulnerable to viruses and worms, Microsoft tightened security heavily on Vista to the point that its security queries and permissions have frustrated users trying to accomplish routine tasks.

Sentiment has been so strong against the operating system that Microsoft’s retail and phase-out of Windows XP was extended from the end of last year to June 30 of this year.

Even so, a “Save Windows XP” campaign was initiated by technology publication InfoWorld, which garnered attention, more than 215,000 online signatures, but no success in getting Microsoft to continue making XP available in retail markets, as well as on most PCs sold by manufacturers.

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