Theory - Vista is WinME all over again!

I've been touting this for a while so about time I put it in writing.

I can't help thinking that Micro$oft has gone back to the future and is using a tried and tested method of moving money out of a sleeping giant. When Windows ME shipped in the late part of the 90's/early 00's, Microsoft knew they'd be facing a tide of resistence from users who had grown accustomed to the "safe ship" they had in Windows 98. It took some time, but now that it was stable, no-one was going anywhere.

It was a lesson learned from previous versions of Office - why move when the current version works fine thanks very much.

So, how do you move this lumbering beast? By releasing a flawed, crappy and useless piece of software. The howls of derision were long and lasting and within 12 months, lo and behold, we had Windows XP - a stable platform. Perhaps unsurprisingly, people moved in droves.

Roll forward to 2009 and we're about to see Windows 7 released to great fanfare. It's hot on the heals of the latest "Windows ME" - Vista - which was soundly rounded on for it's failings. Windows 7 has, of course, redeemed Microsoft and the pronouncement of it being a new stable platform has resonated widely.

From my own experiences, most businesses found the move to Windows XP a massive cost burden - and trust me, they were never going to consider Vista as a viable upgrade. They were happy on XP and were staying put - the howls about it's stability just gave them final support to go nowhere.

Now that Windows 7 is about to be released, it'll be interesting to see how many now make the move...