The Mojave experiment

This ZDNet article discusses the negative coverage in the blogosphere surrounding part of Microsoft's new Vista marketing campaign called the Mojave Experiment. As a future Microsoft employee, I have to admit that I'm getting tired of one of the most common reactions people have when I tell them I'm going to work for Microsoft: "can you fix Vista?" I usually answer "no, actually, I'm working on Windows Live, which has little to do with Windows, despite the poor branding." Then, depending on my mood, I might follow up by asking if said Vista-hater has ever in fact used Vista (usually not). Most people who have used Vista a few times instantly see why it's so terrible - the user interface is DIFFERENT than XP! They don't know how to use it! The reviewers must be equally puzzled by the horrible new interface.

I won't go into an in depth analysis of why Vista's interface is superior to XP and even in some ways (certainly not all) to Leopard. The point is, as the Mojave Experiment points out, that the interface is NOT the issue. Generally, the (valid) complaints about Vista are related to hardware compatibility. When Vista came out, drivers were not ready for a lot of older hardware, which caused nightmares for people trying to upgrade. Apple conveniently doesn't have to worry about this since they have a very limited set of hardware. In addition to hardware compatibility issues (mostly solved at this point), Vista requires a lot of system resources, so I wouldn't recommend trying to upgrade the XP computer you bought 5 years ago.

Overall, I'm not sure whether the "Can you fix Vista?" question is more common or more irritating than "You're working for Microsoft? Why not Google? I LOVE Google! AND they have free food!" Don't forget the ball pit and massages - two very important perks that I'm missing out on by working for Microsoft.

Bottom line: just because I'm going to work at Microsoft doesn't mean I can fix your least favorite Microsoft product or your computer. If you don't believe me that I have neither the training nor the desire to fix your computer, please read Avi Flamholz's informative article, I'm a computer scientist, not your technical support.