I can't really comment on the piece technically, but it's not persuading me as to why MS should write off however many millions it poured into the OS unless Vista actively blows up machines. Yeah, it has annoying features and TBH not much excitement, but nothing he cites can't be worked around or plain turned off, and some of the problems will go away when people upgrade their equipment.

as a die hard mac fan, I question the "hot on the heals" statement. I think MacOS CPU sales still makes up something like 7% of the market. 7%...hot? eh. Not so much. I'd be curious to see the sales figures of MacOS vs Vista. That would be interesting.

The pricing is staggering. That is what I find offending. What is it? $200 for Home Basic version? And another $239 for office? MacOS is the same $200 for a FAMILY PACK (5 licenses). The work suite is $79.

/rant

I confess, I have yet to see/play Vista. Not much desire. I have an XP install on my bootcamp. That's enough for me.

Yeah "must abandon" is awfully melodramatic. I'll bet that by SP2 it'll be as stable as XP or 2000 ever was.

Early adopters (& people unlucky enough to need a new computer right after a new OS is released) always deal with bugs, that's just how it is.

I HAZ MUZIK! The XM home kit for the new device arrived!

Now playing -- "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" -- Wonder Who. (That's actually what they called themselves on that record, even though it's really the Four Seasons.)

Lots of people in the office use Vista with no issues. I'm sure the issues will smooth themselves out. I haven't upgraded to Vista at work because I haven't wanted to take the time. At home, I don't have any reason to spend the money to upgrade my OS that just gets used for some work stuff and the occasional game. I use Kubuntu for everything else.

I think the biggest problem with Vista is that there just isn't a good reason for people with XP to upgrade. Why spend money and risk breaking anything when XP is working fine?

I'd be curious to see the sales figures of MacOS vs Vista. That would be interesting.

I think OS/X people are more likely to upgrade the OS on existing hardware while Windows people are more likely to upgrade by buying a new computer. When you can get a new desktop for as little as $250 I can't say that's a bad way to upgrade.

I'd be curious to see how OS/X would do if it wasn't tied to Apple hardware, Hackintoshes aside.

Why spend money and risk breaking anything when XP is working fine?

See-through windows!

I agree that "must abandon" is way over the top; on the other hand, the decision to keep XP on the shelves seems kind of telling: [link]

I'm (hopefully) about to take possession of a new system next week. It'll have more than enough grunt to run Vista but I have no inclination to even try out the new OS--even though I have access to it, thanks to the new part-time temporary job at the school.

So far, Vista hasn't been a problem for me, except that it doesn't seem to be able to talk to my HP Photosmart 3180 printer.

Another editorial about the relative failure of Vista in the marketplace: [link]

At the same time, Enderle, an analyst who counts Microsoft as a customer, said, "Vista adoption is well below where I thought it would be by now...Corporations aren't even close to being ready for Vista, and many of us have been expecting this move. The biggest issue is that most don't seem to see the value in the product. Right now the majority of the comments I'm getting would indicate the people [who] don't want Vista right now are in the majority."

Enderle, mind you, is about as pro-Microsoft an analyst there is in the business today. If he's saying that people don't want Vista, and the OEMs, which at the end of the day are all about selling units, don't want to sell it, the only conclusion you can come to is that Vista is failing to win the market.