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Emails from Microsoft managers show they feared Mac comparisons even before Vista launched

Microsoft is definitely feeling the heat as Apple gains momentum in the marketplace and sales of Mac systems climb to ever-higher levels. Apple's series of commercials with the "Hi I'm a Mac" introduction are familiar to most consumers and bothered Microsoft enough for it to start its own ad campaign to show most of the accusations in the Mac ads are stereotypes.

Emails have surfaced that were unsealed during the class action suit against Microsoft over allegedly misleading consumers with its Vista Capable marketing program. The email is from a time before Vista was on the street and Microsoft was advertising the coming Vista OS and trying to keep from hurting sales of Windows XP machines at the same time.

Computerworld reports that one of the interesting emails started with a column written by Walter Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal titled “What PC to Buy if You Are Planning On a Vista Upgrade”. What raised the ire of some at Microsoft weren’t the hardware choices Mossberg made; rather it was one paragraph from the column that said, "You won't have to worry about Vista if you buy one of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, which don't run Windows. Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac. Its operating system, called Tiger is better and more secure than Windows XP, and already contains most of the key features promised for Vista."

The paragraph caught the attention of Microsoft's Padmanand Warrier, a developer in the Windows group, and prompted him to send an email to other managers within the Windows group. Warrier added in the email quoting Mossberg, "A premium experience as defined by Walt = Apple…"

One of the recipients that the email was sent to was Richard Russell, a development manager within Microsoft who wrote back, "My takeaway from Walt's article is that we have failed to communicate Vista's value. [Windows has the ability to] run on a very wide-ranging set of systems from the minimally capable to the incredibly capable. Apple doesn't do that."

The email reply also touches on the source of the class action suit, the Vista Ready program. Russell said, "Vista Ready means that a PC will run Vista well -- it doesn't mean the users will get a 'premium' experience -- it never has meant that. There was some thinking and effort put into having a higher-tier Vista Ready logo, but this didn't fly with the OEMs. Also, if we spec Vista Ready too high, we will increase the already erroneous and popular perception that Vista is a pig with huge hardware requirements."

Russell spelled it out clearer when he wrote, "I think we have made a mistake in equating 'running Vista well' with a 'premium experience'. E.g., we haven't been successful in sending a 'good, better, best' message. Vista Ready == 'better.'"

The email exchange is among the reams of messages unsealed recently by U.S. district Court Judge Marsha Pechman as part of the class action proceedings.

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By Bateluer on 11/20/2008 1:03:02 PM , Rating: 5
Honestly, if you a bought a 299 USD PC, did you really expect it to run anything well? MS was very up front with what those programs meant and didn't attempt to hide it from anyone. As I recall, they have very clear charts on their website with what you could do with each and what each meant.

A chimp could have understood it. Microsoft should not sued for user's stupidity.




By Frank M on 11/20/2008 1:28:32 PM , Rating: 1
I disagree. If a computer was incapable of running Vista, it shouldn't have been listed as being "Vista capable." If I can't run your new on my $399 machine, then you should make sure that I can purchase an OS that will run on it.


By tdawg on 11/20/2008 2:08:30 PM , Rating: 5
Vista Capable = Vista Basic (no Aero).
Vista Premium Ready = Vista Home Premium / Ultimate (all the trimmings).

This was posted everywhere I looked before Vista came out. Microsoft's Vista website leading up to the launch opened with this chart, if I remember correctly.

Microsoft was up front with what the sticker meant and made it easy to know what was required to run the features I wanted.


By Bruneauinfo on 11/20/2008 2:33:07 PM , Rating: 5
well, i would at least expect them to ask a salesperson. if the sales person doesn't know - that's the retailer's fault. retailer's should know what they are selling. if Average Joe bought it without asking anyone for advice he is foolish, and purchasing at his own risk.


By rudolphna on 11/20/2008 3:00:25 PM , Rating: 5
thats not what people care about. what they do is walk in, say I want a computer to do email, word processing and internet. They sales rep shows them one, they buy it, end of discussion. Usually. Most people know little to nothing about computers. Some of them dont even know the difference between an operating system and a program.


By tdawg on 11/20/2008 3:18:24 PM , Rating: 2
True, but it is the responsibility of the consumer to understand what they're buying. As long as the manufacturer puts it out there for them to access (this information was available on displays in stores and on OEM websites, not just Microsoft's Vista page), they've done their part.


By zerocool84 on 11/20/2008 4:17:46 PM , Rating: 5
But if you haven't noticed, no one takes responsibility for themselves any more. It's always someone else's fault. If I'm spending my money, I'm going to make sure I know everything about what I'm buying but also, we put trust in these experts at the retailers to tell us what things are to teach people so they should be at fault, not Microsoft.


By JAB on 11/20/2008 11:35:40 PM , Rating: 2
The problem with that is most people havent needed to really do reasearch before. Upgrade the computer and it would be faster easer to use and more stable than the last time. There just wasnt any need to agonise over what most people consider a no braner. There were experienced people at microsoft that were confused by the naming.
Few who did the reasearch would have boughtsome of those computer after all for about the same price you could get a compatable chipset that would work right. The stickers encouraged people to make bad choices. Blaming the consumer for taking the sticker on the case at fase value is not going to increase consumer confidence in your product end of story.

I know a ton of people that are not stupid they make 6 figures but 'dont have time to mess with something that doesnt work right'.

I just cant understand this attitude. I tried explaining what computer to get and even wrote out what to get and no one did. The standard answer was 'can you just install XP that is too confusing' or 'I am just going to get a Apple'.


By Silverel on 11/23/2008 12:12:16 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
we put trust in these experts at the retailers


Experts at retailers, lol. That's like neo-con nazis at a black pride rally, or a republican president at the lead of a peaceful country.

My point, there's too many employees at retailers that just do their job day-to-day, or try to upsell the inhouse brands regardless of performance. You can't rely on them being experts OR getting you what you need.


By theapparition on 11/20/2008 3:38:18 PM , Rating: 2
And for those users.......they shouldn't be upgrading OS's either.


By omnicronx on 11/21/2008 12:10:40 PM , Rating: 2
Whose fault is that? Buying a computer is no different then buying pretty much any product, if you do not research it properly you have a chance of getting ripped off. If I were to buy a car and the salesman ripped me off, is it the manufacturers fault?


By mrEvil on 11/21/2008 4:00:55 PM , Rating: 2
You were right on until your last sentence. An OS is a program.

MS really messed up Vista by releasing 3 million different flavors to the retail chains and then having ineffective marketing gurus sitting there not telling people what they need. I will not even get into the other points people have mentioned with hardware requirements (nightmare).

How many different flavors of XP were there? Home and Professional. You can say Media Center, but that was not initially rolled out. Could you run either version on the same hardware (99.9% of the time) the answer is yes. Microsoft did not learn that simple is better. Maybe they will take that with them with V7.


By noirsoft on 11/22/2008 8:50:49 PM , Rating: 2
Again, not true. You can argue about what was or wasn't released to the sales channel, but the simple truth is that there is only one more version of Vista than there was with XP, and that is to fill a feature spec that XP didn't have. Other than that, there is a 1:1 correspondence between XP and VIsta versions.

XP Home -- Home Basic
XP Media Center -- Home Premium
XP Pro -- Vista Pro
None -- Vista Ultimate (combines Pro and Media center, whcich was not available with XP)

The only version added to Vista was one that people wanted. Stop saying they had "too many" versions. It's not any more than there were with XP. And now that all new PCs (even things like the Netbooks) can run Home Premium, there's almost no need for Home Basic.


By MikeMurphy on 11/28/2008 4:22:42 PM , Rating: 2
You're forgetting the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of each.


By nangryo on 11/20/2008 9:15:48 PM , Rating: 2
To be honest, as a person who involved a lot's of computer sales, it was rarely the buyer could distinguish between capable or premium ready sticker, even less, to ask about the difference between it. The majority of the buyer even don't know what operating system was. What they know is they could do some work with it.

So, your comment is a moot point


By Oregonian2 on 11/20/2008 10:04:04 PM , Rating: 3
You're saying that the average joe won't understand that a $2000 computer will be more capable than a $500 one? Too hard to understand? Understanding of video cards and other issues I don't believe to be necessary.


By Bateluer on 11/20/2008 3:02:55 PM , Rating: 4
Wish I could edit my DT posts. The title on the thread should read 'Only a fool would misunderstand . . .' It was early for me.

It was summed up well in the following posts. As a consumer looking to buy a product, you should be doing some research into the product. Most younger people will instinctively hit the Internet for their research, and the Capable vs Premium Ready information was plastered all over the web in late 2006 and most of 2007. Any retail sales person selling PCs should have known this information and relayed it to the consumer.

It is NOT Microsoft's fault that people are retarded. If you're going to dislike Microsoft, dislike them for a real reason, like the DRM they push with their Zunes, Vista, and other products.