Business Decisions by Microsoft: Bad vs Good
Microsoft had a lot to live up to after supporting an operating system called Windows XP. Windows XP was widely used by everyone from school kids, to multi-million dollar corporations. Microsoft seemed to be under a lot of pressure to create a GUI that was as “user friendly” as the Mac, handle crashes better than XP, and made better use of memory. Their answer: Windows Vista. Quickly seeing their failure, the answer was to get something out that would “fix” their place in the market. Their answer (and the right one): Windows 7.
Windows Vista – Why It Failed
Vista proved quickly that it was not a stable environment. Microsoft admits they saw more hard locks, crashes and blue screens in the first week of launch than in an entire year of tracking Windows XP. These crashes weren’t picky. They affected all hardware types and configurations. Stability was one of the major promises Microsoft made during their product announcements. So it was no surprise people were disheartened when their machines were failing.
Along with it’s stability issues, Vista proved to be incompatible with most existing applications. Major applications that were critical to businesses work such as Acrobat Reader, anti-virus software, and VPN weren’t compatible. This again soured users to Vista.
Performance was poor, activation was not hassle free, the implementation of UAC, and too many versions of Vista lending to version overload; sent users over the edge. They were flooding their computer dealers in droves to revert back to Windows XP, forcing Microsoft to admit that maybe Vista wasn’t such a great idea after all.
Windows 7 – Why It Is Successful
Windows 7 provides a much more stable environment than Vista. Windows 7 seemed to achieve in stability what Vista was shooting for.
Windows 7 is more friendly with regards to compatibility issues. Handles the