Date:27/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/27/stories/2008072751891100.htm
Front Page Vista? It's like 'New Coke'! Anand Parthasarathy Analyst likens it to short-lived Cola avatar that customers rejected - Photo: Anand Parthasarathy OLD IS GOLD?: Vista compared to 'New Coke.' But Microsoft disagrees. Bangalore: Do a Google search for the top 10 marketing fiascos of all time and one prominent candidate, is the decision of the Coca Cola Company in 1985, to subtly change the flavour of their flagship soft drink, to what it called 'New Coke.' Outraged customers soon forced the company to go back to the old formula, which has been sold ever since, as 'Coke Classic.' Last week, the Web was agog with postings and blogs pegging the comment of an analyst at Forrester Research, who while reviewing enterprise trends in the first half of 2008, wrote: "Vista is 'New Coke.'" He suggested that like the short-lived Coca Cola variant, the new avatar of Windows was being rejected by corporate users, those who had upgraded, constituting less than one in ten. Microsoft meanwhile has claimed that it has sold 180 million copies of Vista to PC users of all kinds. So who is right? Possibly both. One theory suggests, many businesses bought the new version automatically - but faced with hassles, they 'downgraded' to the earlier, Windows XP. Since we last reported on this page on the imminent expiry of XP (The Software that refuses to die! The Hindu June 29 2008), Microsoft has relented, just a wee bit: It has promised updates and patches to XP till 2014; though it won't sell new copies, except in a stripped down version for Net access devices in the developing world. It has also created a site called the Windows Vista Compatibility Centre ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/ ) which helps users verify if their PCs can run a Vista flavour. It has beefed up the section where users can check if the new software will work with their existing printers and other peripherals. The list of peripherals covered runs into thousands. Microsoft then went on to stage an exercise to prove that a lot of opposition to Vista might be fuelled by the media rather than customer's real perceptions. For three days earlier this month in San Francisco, it encouraged some 120 lay users to sample what it called a new operating software called "Mojave." Most of them said they were quite happy with the experience - at which point Microsoft revealed that in fact "Mojave" was nothing but Vista. Sneaky? Possibly, and bloggers are saying the real problems with Vista lay in the installation and the annoying interruptions. But Microsoft is so pleased, it has created a web page where it will post videos of the experiment, starting on Tuesday next ( www.mojaveexperiment.com ). See for yourself. As they (almost) say, all's fair in love, and Web war. Join Access India convention: For updates on it visit: http://accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Registration is now open! To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
