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Microsoft Sued Over Vista Marketing
daviddennis writes "According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a lawsuit alleges that Microsoft engaged in deceptive practices by letting PC makers promote hardware as 'Windows Vista Capable' even though they knew it could not run most of Vista's widely-promoted features. Microsoft responds by saying that the differences have been promoted with one of the most extensive marketing pushes in company history. 'In sum, Microsoft engaged in bait and switch -- assuring consumers they were purchasing Vista Capable machines when, in fact, they could obtain only a stripped-down operating system lacking the functionality and features that Microsoft advertised as Vista ... As a result, the suit said, people were buying machines that couldn't run the real Vista.'"
1 GB ram is the minimum for a responsive experience with windows .. especially with the required anti-virus running.
The should start off at 1GB. PC makers lose credibility selling systems with less than that because the experience is going to suck.
Vista Home Basic includes the "core experience," which means Microsoft admits that the rest is useless window dressing.
Hey... which version comes without the DRM feature?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The fact is that the vast majority of users don't need a hog like Vista for anything they don't already use XP for, making an incentive to upgrade almost nonexistent aside from having the latest Shiny New Thing(tm). Making Vista seem more attractive would be the only way to get grandma to pay $500 just to be able to send the same emails at the same speed.
That's what happens when you market stripped down versions and feature full versions at the same time. It's like being promised a BMW and getting a Honda instead. Most average users don't understand all these differences and the sales person happily told them "Vista will run on it" to make a sale.
Microsoft may or may not win this one but regardless, the damage is done as far as end users are concerned.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Unfortunately, you are correct. There was nothing in their promotions that indicated "Capable" at a certain productivity or usability level. If the machine says "Vista Capable" and it runs any version of Vista - then it's Vista Capable. MS is just taking advantage of consumers' inability to interpret what is stated... just like someone complaining about a store sale that says up to 50% off - "Why is this only 10% off?" - "Because it says UP TO 50%".
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
This one, but it's not done yet.
To most of the people who use computers, there's no difference between the core of an OS and the user interface. It's the software that makes the computer work, and it's not the same software that they thought they'd be able to run when they saw "Vista capable" on the machines.
That doesn't necessarily mean the suit itself has any merit, but I can definitely see where the customers are coming from.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I bought a monitor that has a "Works with Windows Vista" sticker on it but my Packard Bell still isn't cooperating.
Agreed. Aero is not vista, but MS never really mentioned that in their advertising, did they? As far as the public knew Aero did not exist. it was all just "vista". I actually concur with the article. I think this case has merit. Not just because I want to see MS go down, but also because I'm sick of bait and switch advertising in technology. I also want to see someone sue a video game company for advertising a game showing all cut scenes with no real gameplay. I hate that.
They were advertising a product with its niftiest features, but I think that about 15 minutes of research would have let someone know that they couldn't use the Aero interface.
Me thinks you put too much faith in the ability of US consumers to do 'research.'
This is the same country that sues fast food places because they didn't know fast food is fattening and unhealthy, despite needing only 15 minutes of research to tell them what large quantities of saturated fat and sodium would do to the human body.
Well, people assumed that certification meant they could run Vista. It didn't say "Mostly Windows Vista Capable". It didn't say "Windows Vista Capable Without Aero". It simply said it was 'capable' of running Vista, which doesn't imply a subset.
There were so damned many versions of Vista, people were relying on that sticker to know if the machine was worth running Vista on. Finding out that you can run the crippled version on your new machine you just forked money over for is probably not what consumers were expecting. If professionals in the industry haven't been entirely clear on what macine resources you need, your average consumer doesn't stand a chance of sorting this crap out.
Well, except that in those SUV ads they have little wee fine print at the bottom of the screen which says the vehicle isn't actually being offered as something which scales wilderness mountains, and that you shouldn't try to replicate what you see.
In the case of Vista, people have been told to expect all of this shinyness, they've been told that their machines are capable of doing it, and then they're discovering that sticker means "well, you can sorta kinda mostly do the stuff we claimed, but all of the good reasons to buy Vista aren't actually implied by that sticker -- that was just a marketing campaign".
Some of us would argue those two things are one and the same.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
To me, this is a little bit like suing because even after buying a bag of chocolate chips, you couldn't make cookies that look as nice as the ones on the package.
No, this is like buying "ready to bake" cookies only to find you have to add eggs in order to bake them. Well, you didn't buy eggs while you were at the store because you thought they are ready to bake as the bag advertises. Sure you could try to bake them without the eggs, but you aren't getting the full cookie experience you expected.
but I think that about 15 minutes of research would have let someone know that they couldn't use the Aero interface
It isn't the job of the consumer to research whether an advertisement means what it says. That's why there are consumer protection laws in the first place. Not everyone is capable of figuring out how to do such research. Now if you want to the computer that runs Aero the best, then sure that is the job of the consumer to do their homework.
If the stickers say "Vista Capable" then they should be Vista capable and not some smaller subset which provides minimal functionality. If you can't see why that's deceptive, then you don't fully understand what the word means.
I'm all for making Microsoft follow the rules, but at what point does this cross the line from "buyer beware" to "deceptive advertising"?
Car analogy time!
Car companies use phrases like "starting at $22,900" all the time in their commercials, when we know damn well that if you want power windows, A/C, a CD player, and a decent sized engine, you will be paying significantly more than that price. The "starting at" price is always the most basic model. I don't see any difference between this and advertising "Windows Vista Capable" and only being able to run basic version of Windows Vista. The computer is, in fact, capable of running Windows Vista.
"But wait!" TFA exclaims. "It can't run ALL of Vista, at least not all the features that Microsoft advertised as being in Vista!"
So? That same car commercial has the car making hairpin mountain pass turns at 65 miles an hour, probably with custom tires, a beefy engine, and a specially trained driver. Do those things come with the $22,900 car? Certainly not. Why then are these same people not filing suits about the Ford Edge not being able to climb buildings and park on walls?
I can't see this suit going anywhere. There is a fine line between letting a company advertise their products and forcing them to tell everyone how shitty their stuff is, and this suit crosses it.
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The problem is that Vista is all about the WOW, so if you don't get the WOW, you don't get Vista. Can you imagine getting home with a brand new machine and turning it on and not seeing the WOW?.
I'd be mad and mislead!
You know, now that you mention it, going after the game makers has merits.
No, I'm not saying it should run with everything _maxxed_. But I can think of games which are anywhere from completely unplayable (as in, crash), to a slideshow, to having to be downgraded to a pityful joke, on machines which meet the minimum advertised specs. Sometimes even on machines which meet the _recommended_ specs. And that I don't really find ok.
I can think of games which were launched with some advertised spec, but then some mandatory patch turned them into a graphics orgy that outright crashes the game or machine of someone who did previously meet the specs. One example is COH. When the graphics upgrade happened that put COH graphics on par with COV. I know at least one person whose (admittedly crap) laptop started to just crash to desktop when that graphics update hit. In spite of having previously been perfectly good to play COH, and still being perfectly good to play WoW. (And, you know, because it's a MMO you can't refuse to install a patch.)
I can think of games which were hyped for their supposed great graphics, except _no_ machine at the time of release could actually display the advertised graphics as more than a frame per second. (E.g., EQ2. It was launched at a time when the 9800 passed for the top end graphics card, and sorry, it wasn't anywhere near enough to play other than at a massively reduced graphics quality. And by massively reduced, I mean that even at a point blank range all detail on a piece of armour was turned into a blurred smear.) I'm sorry, I know that not all machines are created equal, but if _no_ computer exists at the time which can actually display those graphics, then don't fucking advertise it with the max quality screenshots.
Briefly, some truth in avertising would be a welcome change with the game publishers too, you know? Those specs on the box are rarely more than a joke pulled out of the ass by marketting. It has nothing to do with what computers run the game adequately, it just has to do with how big a slice of the market does the marketting department want to market to.
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A couple of my friends work retail doing geeksquid/firedog type work and I would say customers were mislead. There are a certain number of machines that were sold as vista compatible that don't have vista drivers yet. They are fast enough to run vista, but in their current state won't fully function. I would say that is misleading. A significant number of machines they have to flat out turn away for the time being until they are confident they won't hose the customers machines. Also, it wasn't made clear that Vista would have a new feature model as previous versions only had Home and Professional. I think if you are going to change your model that drastically it should be made clear that is the case. Saying it is "Vista compatible" is misleading and should have been advertised "Vista Version X compatible". Even if the customer had no clue the new feature model at least they were told upfront what they were or weren't getting. Illegal? Maybe. Underhanded and misleading to the point it could win a civil suit? Most definitely.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Because whenever Microsoft advertises Vista, they always showcase Aero. Therefore, consumers have been lead to believe that they are the same.
It is true that the machines are technically Vista Capable in that they can run, and the features MS advertises for Vista are features that Vista has. However, the machines that are Vista Capable are not capable of running what MS is advertising Vista to be. Sure, both ads are technically true, but in conjunction they are designed to mislead.
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Actually, what you say is why this suit's unlikely to be simply thrown out. As you said, MS advertised only the versions with the niftiest features. Not a peep in the ads about anything lower down on the scale. And one thing courts have done over the years, in response to games with the fine print is to say "The product is what the advertising says it is.". That's why, in car ads, when they quote the "starting from $X" price you always see, in type that's not too much smaller, an "as shown, $Y" after it. A couple of dealerships ran ads that showed the top-of-the-line luxury variant with all the extras, and then said "starting from $X" where the price they advertised was for the bottom-end stripped-down variant. And when a couple of consumers sued, the judge said "You showed that model. You said it started at $X. You didn't mention or show any other models, nor mention anything about that $X price not being for the model shown. So the consumers have every right to assume that that $X starting price applies to that car exactly as you advertised it.". So in this case it's quite possible that the courts will say that Vista with Aero and all the bells and whistles was what Microsoft advertised, none of the advertising made any mention of lower-end versions or lack of Aero and the bells and whistles, so the buyers are entitled to assume that "Vista Ready" means exactly that: ready to run exactly what Microsoft was advertising, not something that looks completely different and wasn't shown anywhere in the advertising.
Aero != Vista but the Microsoft "Wow" marketing campaign certainly highlights it.
Go through the interactive demo for MS Vista "Wow starts now" and click on the "Easier" link (magnifying glass). Funny how the "3D flip" feature is displayed here without any sort of qualification on the product level or hardware level needed to use it. Even automobile advertisements include a note showing that some features are not "base model". While it may be obvious to advanced computer users that these features will require more system resources, the average PC user is not so educated to understand that the low end Dell they bought can't run the "Wow".
Consiering that Vista is really based on DirectX 10 graphics, and the only card that pretends to have it (Nvidia G8800) has virtually unusable Vista drivers, can any system claim to be full Vista Ready?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Thanks those charts are what I've been looking for, it makes choosing a linux disto as easy as playing darts.
The glass GUI is the least crucial part of Vista, just as it's irrelevant to the ability to operate the system and get things done if I remove Beryl and swap Metacity back in as my window mangler on Ubuntu.
If the little stickers had said "Vista 100% Eye Candy Ready" then you would have a point, but you don't, because they said "vista ready", and that's just one feature of Vista, and frankly it's the least important one. Not that there are ANY features of Vista which would compel me to upgrade.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sure, most companies don't showcase their low-end products. OTOH, when the high-end product is showcased as representing the brand-name it shares with the low-end product, and people are sold some third product on the basis of capacity to use a product identified with that shared brand name, when it cannot use the features that the seller has worked hard to identify with the shared brand name, the marketing is in fact deceptive. Whether it is also so in law may vary by other considerations, but, note that adds for particular brands of cars where there highlighted version has different options than the base that advertise selling points (such as price) applicable to the base model tend also to include reference to the higher price of the version "as shown". There is a reason for that.
I actually agree with the general concepts here...
As anyone can tell from my posting history, I am quick to step in to correct wrong or ignornant comments about the NT architecture and the Slashdot myths of Vista, as most people really have very little technical understanding of either.
However, Vista Home 'Basic' should NEVER have existed. MS really screwed up here, they should have just made the Business version which doesn't install games and non business features by default and Vista Ultimate for home users. They could have moved their pricing model so that Ultimate was provided at the Home Premium price and not only made more money, but gave users more features and not caused the version confusion that exists.
Businesses usually get the need for a different version, and the Business version of Vista is a good idea as it doesn't install the 'toys' by default. However, home users should not be put in the position of choosing a version, especially when there are 3 versions for the Home Market.
(Home Basic = Vista Core without next gen Video subsystem enabled)
(Home Premium = Vista that meets the needs of 95% of the users) and
(Ultimate = The complete OS with both business domain features and all the home toys, and the toys that used to be part of the Plus Program.)
There is no reason the Ultimate License and the Business license couldn't have been available at a comparable price point, and just not screwed with the other versions.
This is the MS marketing and logic that I refer to as the Steve Ballmer side of thinking, something MS would never have done when he dind't have the control or his mindset in control of things like this.
I can almost understand Vista Home Premium, but Vista Home Basic truly denies users of most of the features that make Vista a true benefit over XP. Sure the kernel is optimized, the caching is brilliant, new audio, new network, the graphic subsystem sees some benefits even in Vista Home Basic, but by not including the accelerated features of the new GUI subsystem 'aka Aero/Glass' they are screwing users as this is a major performance gain even in desktop applications.
And don't forget gaming for DX10 that depends on the WDDM/Aero model. So in theory DX10 games running on Home Basic will probably fail, as DX10 expects the full GPU scheduling and GPU memory sharing that is what makes Vista a next generation OS for Gaming and Graphics.
Sadly one of the desgin goals and beauty of the NT code base was the unified structure for all classes of users and business from the home desktop to the massive servers, all sharing a common modular kernel and code base.
MS still has this, but their marketing and business idiots screw this up by disecting Vista into 5 versions for just the desktop. Why even keep a common code base, especially if you are going to turn off features in Home Basic that are 'architectural' in nature?
I hope MS loses and they re-consider the whole Vista versioning mess and at the very least pull Home Basic from ever being sold again.
Attention Everyone:
Anyone out there that is actually considering a new computer with Vista installed, DO NOT BUY a computer with anything less than Vista Home Premium installed. PERIOD.
Fortunately, most of the computers and laptops you find that have Vista preinstalled at places like BestBuy are using Vista Home Premimum.
It does seem the market has already spoken quite loudly about Home Basic and MFRs and retailers are getting the hint to not even bother with Home Basic already.
(If I get modded up for insulting linux guys we know it's true)