Channel Partners to Microsoft: Stop bashing Windows Vista
Some Microsoft channel partners say the software giant's recent blunt public statements about Windows Vista are putting them in difficult positions with their customers and undermining their efforts to sell the operating system.
In the past month, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has referred to Vista as “a work in progress” and hinted that Microsoft might extend the June 30 deadline for Windows XP. Earlier this month at the RSA conference in San Francisco, David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft, said the User Account Control feature in Vista was designed to annoy users.
These public comments couldn't come at a worse time for solution providers who've been dutifully chipping away at the market's calcified disdain for Vista, which is fueled by negative feedback both from organizations that have deployed the OS and organizations on the sidelines parroting the 'Vista sucks' meme.
Brian Williams, president of Advantech NW, a Gresham, Ore.-based solution provider, says Vista, when configured and deployed correctly, is actually a solid OS. "We've completed our deployment to Vista internally, and we're finding that we can support it in controlled environments and that it does work right," he said.
Microsoft, Microsoft Partners, Windows Vista, Windowx XP
I think it’s true that people need to lay off the Vista bashing. It’s true that Vista has had problems. It’s also true that Microsoft has been working to at least partially alleviate these problems by being pretty quick about providing patches and fixes and helping its loyal partners and users. I think it’s good to see Microsoft working on improving and expanding its partner program (making it more accessible for small businesses, who have needed extra support for a while now) and also develop a new product that will be a big improvement over Vista. Also, the company has made clear that it is trying its best to listen to suggestions from users (and has used some of these suggestions to revamp products). Hopefully a new product will come soon (as soon as it is properly developed and tested, of course) that delivers all that Vista promised and perhaps even more.