More on the trail of the missing Vista marketing. It turns out Microsoft ARE advertising Vista. I’ve heard a couple of Ads on the radio (TalkSport) over the past week and today I got a TechNet email titled: “Why should you upgrade to Windows Vista?”

The email started with an apology:

“one of the implications of the increased focus on security was that compatibility with Windows Vista was not where we wanted it to be at launch. Over the past eighteen months, Microsoft and our partners have made tremendous progress in compatibility, performance, and battery life.”

It then went on to list a few “key facts”:

• Windows Vista now supports more than 77,000 printers, cameras, speakers and other devices.
• More than 2,700 software programs are “Certified for” or “Works with” Windows Vista; 97 of the top 100 consumer applications are compatible.
• 62% of small businesses said Windows Vista saves them time, and 70% said it makes them more productive, according to an independent survey.
• More than 140 million copies of Windows Vista have been sold, making it the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft history. Even Macs run it.
• 71 percent of Windows Vista customers like it better than their last operating system.
• People familiar with Windows Vista are two to three times more likely to have a favorable impression of it.
• Every 10 PCs that switch to Windows Vista is the equivalent of taking an automobile off the road, in terms of greenhouse gases.

I had to laugh a little at the “Even Macs run it” fact. Like they threw that in at the last minute and some Mac user out there is going to jump ship based on this email.

Not sure about the “71 percent” thing? Almost every Vista switcher I have spoken with agree that it is ‘better’ in some ways than XP but not enough to rave about. I can imagine they asked a lot of new, maybe non-techy users that one.

Overall however I’m impressed. Not by the facts in the message but by the fact that I have received at least some sort of clue from Microsoft convinces me they DO care about Vista and aren’t already digging its grave.

The one thing where the message didn’t explain however was the key differences between the 5 different versions. Something that has surely been putting users off since launch.

Since my post yesterday I have turned into a ‘Windows 7 PI’. Hunting down decent articles online to try and decipher the intelligence within.

In another article over at ars Peter Bright details what he saw from the W7 demo:

What was shown at D6 was rather less than hoped. The big feature—in fact, the sole feature—demonstrated was multitouch, the same technology as found in Microsoft’s multi-thousand-dollar Surface table and Apple’s iPhone. The demonstrated software was more or less the same demos we saw with Surface—photo scaling, finger painting, splashing about in water—along with a Virtual Earth/Google Earth-style mapping program. And that’s the extent of it.

So why did Microsoft bother? Its clear they want to let the world know that W7 is coming. A move which TOTALLY undermines Vista.

Sorry….

Its as if that inside Microsoft they know they messed up with Vista and they want to make it right before they loose everyone to other platforms. So by dangling the W7 worm out in the tech community they probably believe they are doing the right thing.

But they aren’t right. If the 2 Steve’s just came out and said “OK, Vista wasn’t what we hoped.” and apologized to all the techies and developers and then proceeded to open the floor to feedback and comments as to how to move forward then THAT would be the right thing to do.

Hello Seattle, I’m Listening

Given time I think this is what will happen. I still have an optimistic view that the next version of Windows will be what Vista should have been and that Microsoft will hear the backlash loud and clear.

There is one thing I like about the whole Windows 7 thing and that’s the name.

I was never a huge fan of ‘Vista’ as a name. Or of giving a real name to a Windows OS at all. I was always happy with numbers or years such as ‘3.11’ or ’95’ and ‘2000’.

XP wasn’t so bad (Windows 2001 would have been really lame) but Vista should have been labelled ‘Windows 2007’ or something.

‘Windows 7’ is a cool name. Its short and sweet. Its simple and elegant. It doesn’t try and say anything about the OS like ‘Vista’ does and its not a weird acronym/pseudonym like NT or XP (New Technology and eXPerience).

I just hope that Windows 7 IS the final name of their next OS and it doesn’t end up getting a ridiculous monitor 6 months before release.