David Pogue Takes On Vista

guruevi writes to let us know about a review of Microsoft Vista in the NY Times, in the form of an article and a video, by the known Mac-friendly David Pogue. In the article, Pogue recasts Microsoft's marketing mantra for Vista: "Clear, Confident, Connected" becomes "Looks, Locks, Lacks." Pogue writes that Vista is such a brazen rip-off of Mac OS X that "There must be enough steam coming out of Apple executives' ears to power the Polar Express." But the real fun is in the video, in which Pogue attempts to prove that Vista is not simply an OS X clone.

Comments

Or in other words...

[Zerikai]

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

Microsoft is just trying to express how much they love Apple.

Article Summary

[morboIV]

Funny how the summary doesn't include things from the article like:

Vista is infinitely more pleasant to use than its predecessors. There's more logic to its folder structure and naming scheme. Things are easier to find. Fewer steps are required to perform common tasks, especially when it comes to networking. It's almost like someone has an agenda or something.

Re:Article Summary

[morboIV]

Or how about this one:

Windows Vista is not, as the Web's chorus of caustic critics claim, little more than a warmed-over Windows XP. Funny how that quote didn't make it either.

Re:Article Summary

[Lisandro]

Well, yes, Slashdot was always renowed for their editorial objectiveness, specially regarding new Microsoft products :)

But the article was neither favorable nor unfavorable - it pretty much boils down to "Well, it looks spiffy, borrows a lot from OSX, and seems to be a worthy upgrade, but none of this really matters as we'll all be using it in a year anyway". Sadly enough, i think that's more or less right.

Re:Check links

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Gee man, it's called an existentialist symlink, one of the new features of the Vista filesystem: the symlink is there, but it doesn't point at any file or serve any function. Pogue clearly demonstrates Vista's superiority here!

User Account Control

[glas_gow]

Then there's User Account Control, an intrusive dialog box that pops up whenever you try to install a program or adjust a PC-wide setting, requesting that you confirm the change by entering your password. This will strike most people as an unnecessary nuisance, and you can turn it off.

Guess which feature the majority of users will disable.

Seriously, I hope there is some sort of privilege separation, only requiring password authentication for applications that need escalated privileges, otherwise this feature will be ignored left, right and centre.

Re:Okay we get it

[AxminsterLeuven]

Yes. And when Vista's successor is announced, we'll get "Vista didn't have this crap" and "At least with Vista, you could ..." articles. Every day. It is the Slashdot way, grasshopper.

They already have !

[alexhs]

MS has a desktop monopoly.

Please don't redefine words as you wish.

I guess that by your own definition of monopoly, Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly, as they only controlled 91% of U.S. production at their highest ?

Re:Without Apple

[HAKdragon]

The question to ask, is, why use a knockoff like Windows when you can have the original?

Because I can't find a place that sells Xerox Altos? ;)

Re:Corporate environments

[swillden]

Can any one of the Mac fanboys come up with one Fortune 500 company (other than Apple) that has deployed more than 50% Macs?

I'm a Linux fanboy, not a Mac fanboy, but I can: Genentech. 90% Mac and pushing towards 100%. I'm familiar with Genentech because I did some consulting for them last year. The Windows dominance on corporate desktops has much less to do with suitability for the task and much more to do with inertia and culture.