Over the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing so many updates and articles regarding Vista SP1, I can’t help compare it to the buzz that was created when Vista itself was close to release. This is almost of the same magnitude, if not higher. At this point, I want to try and analyse Microsoft’s position, and why it needs to re-think some things.

Whenever new software is released, the developing company makes sure they remove all the bugs and add the right features so that it captures the users right from the word go. Selling software to new users is almost like trying to make a friend. You need to sell it well — make the correct first impression — because today, there is no software which is ‘unique’. There is nothing that does something original. Maybe differently and more efficiently – but not new. That comes about very rarely.

When Microsoft began work on the successor to XP, I’m sure they knew they had a task at hand. With a market share of over 80% of the operating system market, their task was definitely easier than the average joe software developer company. Nevertheless, people are waking up to alternatives. Next in line and the best alternative (subject to requirements) is the passionately followed and perceived to be snobbish — Mac. While the numbers remain low¹, it’s still a formidable contender for the OS king. Then comes the the Linux distributions, mainly because of the sheer variety of flavours that offer something for everyone. It’s a major hit with ‘power users’, who want nothing short of complete control over their systems.

Microsoft began work on Vista with people expecting a natural successor to XP. Longhorn, the pre-Vista developer builds, were exciting. I, myself, admit that I was extremely (and pleasantly) surprised that Microsoft could think up concepts like that. However, when the actual operating system finally came out, it had become a shadow of what people were promised. The disappointment was all too obvious, and the backlash was huge. Articles like this became all too common. I even defended it, for my part because I genuinely believe people haven’t given it enough time. But it’s a little obvious that the software has not been well received (regardless of what your sales numbers say) when people spend more time with your first service pack than the software itself and they petition to save the predecessor. Also, the fact that companies would rather continue shipping computers with the previous operating system shows that something has gone wrong.

The un-attainable hype

I never expected to say this, but Microsoft probably was a victim of the hype it created itself. They over-estimated their own ability to meet deadlines, and hence ended up using up more strokes than staying at par. Latest numbers show that 75% of the market still uses XP, and Vista has yet to break the double digits. After a year, one would expect the better operating system to prevail. So if this is following the natural selection process, is XP really a better software? With SP3 coming out, and benchmarks proving that XP will remain faster² (by almost 10%), one has to wonder if Microsoft should speed things up for Windows 7, and not spend too much time trying to fix Vista. Screen shots and weakly compiled builds are already showing up everywhere, which shows that Microsoft plans to rectify the mistake quickly.

It’s almost idiotic to think that the failure of Vista will get people to switch operating systems. Even if Apple became more aggressive, and distros like Ubuntu (and its variants) caught on, Windows has too much of a market share and established user-base for a mistake like Vista to take it away. However, the more Microsoft pushes Vista on users (and tries to knee out XP from the equation), the more it risks negative feeling towards itself and any future version of Windows.

In my opinion, they should drop any major updates to Vista after SP1, and should put all efforts into making 7 a solid product. Put it through a rigorous testing cycle, so that what comes out is a worthy competitor in the modern operating system’s market. Microsoft shouldn’t forget that their only monopoly is the OS market, and they cannot take it for granted. The next few years will be very important in Microsoft’s history — in a way that two consecutive failures will really damage their reputation as the biggest software company, and raise doubts in companies’ minds about the future and whether it will be a better decision to switch while there is time or get stuck with a company on the down-roll.