Microsoft has had ‘mixed’ success with Windows Vista. I say mixed because even though the newest operating system in the Windows family is the best so far, the company has fallen well short of reaching its target. The ‘credit’ for a large part of this can be given to Apple’s marketing team whose relentless bashing through the Windows v/s Mac ads have been tremendously successful in instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of the average consumer. Websites like PCWorld with their less than neutral coverage of Windows Vista haven’t made things any better. I’m in Mumbai at the moment and I happened to speak to a cousin of mine - whose geekometer clocks just a tad bit higher than the average consumer - and we got talking about Windows Vista and XP. He told me he didn’t really like Vista and preferred XP as an operating system. I asked him why this was the case and he told me he had “heard from someone” that Vista had a lot of problems. I immediately questioned him on whether he had used the OS himself before making the judgement to which he defensively reacted he had, however for less than a day. He had seen a demo machine somewhere and spent a while tinkering with it. His biggest complaint was that he didn’t quite understand it. I told him him to come speak to me when he had given Vista a real chance.

I’ve personally been using Windows Vista since RTM and the number of crashes I’ve had since are less than the number of fingers on my hands, literally. While some early adopters may have been plagued with instability issues - mainly caused because of immature drivers - I have been considerably luckier. And with the arrival of the first Service Pack the system has become as solid as a rock. I keep my laptop on for days altogether and the uptime counter only stops increasing when I restart the machine myself to complete an installation or something of that sort. Add to that many of the simple improvements in user experience - breadcrumb navigation and search to name a few - and you have a brilliant operating system on its hands.

Microsoft has made attempts to lift Vista’s image with the Mojave Experiment which is part of the 300 million dollar budget it has allocated to promotion and advertisement. In my opinion this move is long overdue especially if it has to compete with a company whose strongest asset is its brilliant marketing and PR team. Should Microsoft be able to formulate a marketing strategy / campaign that does indeed cleanup the undeserved Vista mess, it can most certainly see itself winning back the market share it may have lost.

Tags: apple, microsoft, vista

It is all but confirmed Apple is launching the 3G iPhone on the 9th of June. What is expected is 3G(obviously), GPS, and possibly a bigger or a higher resolution screen. However Apple has known to surprise, which is why I have a feeling we might be seeing something more than just an iPhone launch.

I have a feeling Apple might deliver a new product to the market. To extend it`s development along the iPhone-esque lines with touch included would be quite possible. One could speculate Apple might release a UMPC of it`s own but that is highly unlikely as Apple usually enters a given market extremely late. While rumors of a rebranded .Mac service surface - with MacRumors providing the latest scoop - I can`t help but wonder what Mr Turtleneck`s new trump card will be.

Anand at anandtech.com has given an explanation of the mystery that surrounds the processor being used in the new Macbook Air notebooks. I was certain that Apple wasn’t using the smaller, faster Penryn (Santa Rosa Refresh) processors which come out this year and Anand confirms it. He goes on to tell that Apple is indeed using the existing Santa Rosa Merom processors running at Low Voltage, and here is the kicker, these aren’t the traditional LV (Low Voltage) processors provided by Intel. For those unfamiliar with Intel’s mobile processor technology, it comes in forms of Standard Mobile Processors, Low Voltage (LV) and Ultra Low Voltage (ULV). But instead Paul Otellini, CEO Intel and Jobs’ newest Lapdog has got his engineering team to produce the chips running at lower than Standard Mobile Processors in a package designed for the Penryn platform.

This is neither a good or a bad thing, but just shows Apple has managed to walk its own path here. The real concern here is of heat dispensing. Even at a lower voltage, the body of the laptop is really small and will require extensive engineering to remain cool over longer periods. Judging from Apple’s previous shortcomings, I wouldn’t really be surprised if more thighs are burnt. Gel packs anyone ?

On the day of WWDC07, Apple have release a Public Beta of Safari 3 for the Windows Platform. I don’t think I’m the only one who’d say Huh? It’s amazing how Mr Jobs doesn’t spare an opportunity to diss any Microsoft related products and here we are, another of their ‘revolutionising’ pieces prepared for Windows (after the iPod and iTunes). Join me in a vision will you; picture the stage set at WWDC’08, Jobs is halfway into his oh-so-lovely keynote speech and he brings out the Safari Card. He tells us how fast it is, how it ‘changed the way we surf‘ and more importantly, the market share it has.

Has anyone else stopped to think a sizeable chunk of Apple’s success is attributed to Microsoft. Sales shot up tremendously after the Intel Macs with Windows support were announced. A majority of the 10million iPods sold belong to Windows users who also attribute to the 2billion songs and 2 million movies sold by the iTunes Music Store. And now Safari; itching for #3 behind IE and Firefox.

Apple Safari : http://www.apple.com/safari/

Auspicious start: http://findigi.com/Forums/nohardwarecontrol.JPG

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