Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer Ordered To Testify In 'Vista Capable' Case
alphadogg writes "A federal judge in Seattle has ordered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to testify in a class action lawsuit against Microsoft that alleges the company misled consumers in a marketing campaign for its Windows Vista operating system in which computers sold with an older Microsoft OS were labeled 'Vista Capable' when in fact they could only run a basic version of Vista. Ballmer has unique personal knowledge of facts surrounding the case, therefore he must face questioning, Judge Marsha Pechman of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle ruled, according to court documents released late Friday."
I wonder if they allow chair-throwing in court these days.
If they do, I think Microsoft stands a pretty good chance.
At the end, it still comes with and runs a version of Vista.
There are true marketing scams, but IMO, this is not one of them.
The sad irony is that MS lowered the standards to get Vista onto machines that could not support Aero. The original assumption that no one would buy these machines if consumers knew that they could not upgrade from XP to Vista. Considering the negative experiences that many of them consumers had on these machines, many of them don't want Vista nowadays.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Part of the issue here is the meaning of the word capable. Balmer has already said that Vista isn't really a capable operating system (or at least wasn't when launched) so surely the argument therefore is that a machine that is incapable of running Vista is therefore getting exactly the same experience (or better) than someone who is actually running Vista.
Thus actually Vista Capable is a comparison between XP and Vista and thus you are better off having XP as that is just as capable as Vista.
Come on are we seriously thinking that Balmer can't talk his way around the word Capable?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Although I agree with the justice of going after them for misleading statements, I reckon all-in-all these people are better off, having got a PC with XP rather than being forced to wrestle the leviathan.
...except the point is that the point of the lawsuit is that people intending to run Vista bought the computers, and found to their chagrin that they couldn't run it. Which means they were wrestling the leviathan, just with even poorer weapons.
I do feel for them. I have a laptop I bought in April, 4GB RAM, and Vista (preinstalled) has always just been obscenely slow when doing anything like logging in, switching users, etc. Absolutely ridiculous.
Initially, the "Vista Capable" logo meant that you'd be ready to use Aero, and able to run Home Premium or better using all its features. Then, due to pressures from OEMs and Intel among others, the requirements for "Vista Capable" changed to "can have some version of Vista installed", which pretty much meant that many of those machines can barely have Vista Home Basic installed, let alone give you a usable system, and they certainly cannot use Aero.
The gist of the argument is that Microsoft changed the requirements and definition of what "Vista Capable" meant along the way, misleading customers about what it really meant.
For Microsoft, from my point of view (I've followed the computing industry for 25 years or so now), it's business as usual and nothing that surprises me. I'm used to taking any recommendations they make and double it, and used to seeing them lie, cheat, deceive, coerce, defraud and generally do anything they can get away with in order to increase their profits and enhance their control of the computing industry.
Caveat emptor I say, but a lot of people aren't interested in doing research and make informed decisions, they'd rather believe the companies selling them this stuff, or the sales drones at the local big surface shop.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
You must be new here. :P
Here's the point of the plaintiffs: Vista is advertised to have all these nice features. Aero was one of them. Vista Basic does not run Aero because the machines cannot support it. It was not evident to most consumers that Vista Basic was the most stripped down version that could not do this because it was in the fine print. It didn't matter the cost of the machine per se. It was the video chipset that mattered. Mike Nash, VP of MS, bought a $2,100 computer that could not run Aero.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yes, but this is the first time I recall that OEMs sold machines that were seriously underpowered. The difference between XP Home and XP Pro requirements were small. In previous versions, if you upgraded an old machine, you had to double the MS requirements but most new machines met the requirements. In this case, you had a whole lot of new machines that could only run Vista Basic. Add this to whole mess of other problems Vista had at launch and it adds to the negative image of MS.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
At the end, it still comes with and runs a version of Vista.
Actually these machines *didn't* come with a version of Vista. They came with a sticker claiming they are capable of running Vista with no specific of which version of Vista they would be capable of running. As a result, this sticker meant different things to MS marketroids than it did to consumers who found the stickers misleading; hence the lawsuit.
Machines in question were in fact nowhere near new. Intel's 915 chipset for example (which was one of the chips later allowed under "vista capable") was released all the way back in June of 2004. Even Nvidia's geforce 5-series supports the WDDM (A chip which was released way back in 2002). Microsoft simply caved due to intel pressure. Why would you run a brand new operating system on hardware that isn't competitive with 4-year-old hardware?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
For certain small values of "Vista". And a sufficiently tolerant definition of "runs".
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Wrong, this is classic bait and switch.
You bait them with pretty pictures and a new user interface, then you switch it out with something that looks and feels just like XP. Even their new marketing campaign (mojave) pushes the UI with the "participants" talking about how great everything looks. I have yet to see a vista commercial that talks about the technical merits of the operating system, because your average user doesn't understand or care about indexed search or file systems etc.
It would be far simpler to handcuff Ballmer instead.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Although I agree with the justice of going after them for misleading statements, I reckon all-in-all these people are better off, having got a PC with XP rather than being forced to wrestle the leviathan.
I think you misunderstand.
This isn't about whether a computer shipped with Vista or XP, this is about how a computer was labeled.
Microsoft has a qualification process that decides what sticker you're allowed to put on your PC. If your machine meets the requirements you are allowed to brand your computer as "Vista Capable".
Microsoft intentionally lowered the requirements for their sticker program in order to include computers that probably should not have qualified.
This means that there are people out there who bought computers intending to run Vista on them, and thought that the machine was capable of running Vista, and were then disappointed to find out that they could only run a very limited version of Vista.
You can certainly argue that XP is a better OS than Vista, and I don't think you'll see a whole lot of people disagreeing with you around here. But the fact of the matter is that people expected something that they weren't getting.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
The sad irony is that MS lowered the standards to get Vista onto machines that could not support Aero. The original assumption that no one would buy these machines if consumers knew that they could not upgrade from XP to Vista. Considering the negative experiences that many of them consumers had on these machines, many of them don't want Vista nowadays.
This is certainly true.
I've got a Vista machine at home... 64-bit, dual core, 4 gigs of RAM... Runs fine. I might very well be better off with some other choice of OS, but I don't have any genuine issues running Vista. It is at least functional.
I've seen clients bring in Vista machines that are barely functional. They complain about how slow the machine is, how hard it is to do any work. These machines have the bare minimum hardware necessary to boot the OS. They've got 1 GB or less of RAM, a crappy on-board GPU, and some kind of underpowered budget CPU. And these people are miserable with Vista.
If Microsoft had required manufacturers to ship computers with decent hardware you wouldn't be seeing nearly as many people complaining about Vista.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
It also fooled MS employees. One of the damning e-mails was a VP who bought a Vista capable laptop and was pissed it couldn't run Vista in a usable way.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Aero was /advertised as such/, which is part of the point here. The issue isn't the actual functionality of stuff in Vista Business or Ultimate; the issue is the misleading expectations Microsoft allowed.
Microsoft went, "Look! Here is our new shiny OS, Vista! Vista can play movies! Vista has shiny UI! Vista can sing and dance and make you coffee! And look, because this will be coming out soon, we've even labeled computers for you so you'll know which ones are ready for the Vista Experience!"
Consumers went, "Yay! Thank you, Microsoft! This makes my life easier! I, a non-technical consumer who do not wish to have to worry about hardware specifications but do wish to enjoy the benefits of this OS you are telling me about, have gone and bought one of your conveniently labeled computers!"
Then Vista comes out and the consumers try to run Vista Ultimate or Vista Business or whatever, and discover their computer can't. And Microsoft goes, "Oh... yeah, /that/ computer? That one is kind of a piece of junk. That has a crappy Intel chip which can only run this lower-end version. This version doesn't have shiny UI, only plays movies that are 3 years old, and the singing and dancing part only includes musical numbers from Bollywood films. And while this version of Vista can still make you coffee, the coffee can only be decaf with artificial creamer. Didn't you read all the fine print specifications on the Vista box?"
And the consumers go, "WTF BBQ I paid $2600 for this laptop! You said this would run Vista! There's a label right on the computer! I bought this because I didn't want to have to worry about figuring out what hardware my computer had and whether that was enough for various Vista stuff! I bought this computer /specifically/ since the computer says it can run Vista!"
Microsoft goes, "Well, that computer /does/ run Vista! Just not the same version of Vista we were telling you about earlier, that's all. Not our fault you got confused about that."
And the consumers go, "LAWSUIT!"
--Rachel
Inevitable car analogies:
This car is ready to be entered in the Indy 500!
Well, actually it has a top speed of 35 MPH and can't even vaguely qualify, but you CAN enter it!
Off road ready!
Your driveway isn't technically a road and it can go there as long as it's not too steep. Just floor it, you'll eventually creep up to the garage.
Comfortably seats six (infants)
Anti-lock brakes (as long as you're not going more than 5 MPH).
Faster than any computer on the planet (in 1945)
Sound fair?
If Microsoft had required manufacturers to ship computers with decent hardware you wouldn't be seeing nearly as many people complaining about Vista.
On the other hand, if Microsoft hadn't bloated Vista to the point of unusability on the average hardware being sold at the time, there would be even less people complaining.
Replace "Vista" with whatever the latest version of Windows is, and that's pretty much true for all of them at the time they're released. The only shocking part is that some people seem to be surprised by this.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
and the article: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080211-vista-capable-scheme-was-panned-at-microsoft.html
Mike Nash, currently a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an e-mail, "I PERSONALLY got burnt. ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine." Jim Allchin, then the co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, wrote in another e-mail, "We really botched this. ... You guys have to do a better job with our customers."
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.