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Embarrassing 'Vista capable' emails mirror earlier Microsoft deception
The New York Times today prints extracts from some of those embarrassing emails cited in the Vista-capable class action Microsoft is trying to stop – and shows that some things have not changed at Microsoft since I first joined PCW.
One of the first events I covered was a Microsoft preview of Windows 95, then codenamed Chicago. One of the issues, then as with the Vista release, was whether existing machines would be capable of running it.
Microsoftee after Microsoftee stood up and assured us that Windows 95 would run in 4Mbytes of Ram, which was then standard on home and office desktops. They were not lying: they were repeating what they had been told by their employer. But it was, to put it mildly, being economical with the truth.
Windows 95 ran in 4MB of Ram like a 96-year-old runs up Snowdon. Existing machines needed a costly upgrade to 16MB.
The NYT says Microsoft marketers used the term Vista Capable to avoid the implication (or persuade themselves that they were avoiding the implication) that the machine would necessarily run all versions of Vista. And that Microsoft set a low threshold on Vista Capable specs to avoid blighting sales of entry-level XP PCs.
The decision, says the NYT, met considerable internal protest. "Even a piece of junk will qualify," said Microsoft program manager Anantha Kancherla said in an email.
And after the Vista release Mike Nash, vice-president of Windows preoduct management, wrote that his laptop had been reduced to a '$2100 e-mail machine' that would run only a hobbled version of Vista, and could not cope with his favourite video-editing program.
The cache of emails unsealed by the judge hearing the case also contain complaints by Microsoft high-ups about a lack of Vista drivers shortly after the release of the OS. Microsoft says the number of Vista drivers has doubled since then.
Posted by Clive Akass on March 10, 2008 | Permalink
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