Posted by QuickReadAbout.com Staff in There is an interesting process in the way that Microsoft has rolled out their latest Operating System, titled, Vista.
This operating system came with no downgrade rights. It was not placed in a CD case like the others and when it was launched via PC manufacturers the previous version as a competitor, was eliminated- more like forbidden to be sold after the launch of the new operating system.
Even the EULA, was rewritten with very restrictive rights. So much so that the Free Software Foundation launched a campaign against it and many consumer groups are recommending not using it for now.
This all has resulted in a market slow down for PC manufacturers and and a shunning of the product by retail consumers. Many are saying that this is Windows Millennium all over again. But on careful examination, it actually looks more like the roll out of Windows 95. A major similarity is that, like Windows 95, Vista is also appears to be quietly beta tested on the consumer market.
This testing is causing unfavorable market changes which Microsoft is perhaps feeling at present. This may be demonstrated by the latest statistics in the retail PC markets.
While sales in the retail PC market continue to drop it’s no wonder PC manufacturers have reverted back to selling XP machines along with the new Vista Machines.
So exactly what is going on here?
If we look at a few relationships, we can begin to piece together the motivations. While Microsoft holds a strong market share in the PC marketplace, it is the PC manufacturers who are their biggest customer. This customer represents a whopping 80% of all operating system sales. The retail market represents a paltry 20% of the sales.
With the recent “Vista” roll-out Microsoft set policy with these manufacturers that required them to offer “only” Vista on all new PC’s sold. And with glee these manufacturers did just that.
Prior to Vista’s roll-out, PC sales for 2005 to 2006 were, to say the least, very slow.
So naturally PC manufacturers were looking for a boost and stringent terms don’t look like “arm bending” when you have nothing to lose and everything to gain unless of course…
As you can imagine Vista sales are very closely tied to PC sales. So if PC sales are down and operating system sales are up a huge gap is created in the process. The “fall guy” is, you guessed right, the PC manufacturer.
As you can see, the coercive step went unnoticed simply due to market conditions for PC manufacturers.
Ok, let’s look at something more critical to the adoption of this new operating system.
In the past, Microsoft made available methods to “downgrade” to the previous version if the current version didn’t work with your hardware or you just didn’t like the “new and improved”.
With Vista, there was no provision for downgrades created. Microsoft seems to have taken the attitude this time around as did Admiral David G. Farragut said, during the Civil War, Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, then the battle cry of Microsoft is Damn the end user, full speed ahead.”
So Vista to the rescue? Not quite! Did Microsoft and the vendors forget the trump card?
Yes… the end user.
Several months into the release of this new operating system retail sales plummeted and business sales slowed dramatically.