Monday, August 20, 2007

Suddenly Vista has no friends

First Coding Horror was down on Vista. Then James Fallows ripped it off his laptop. Then the editor of PC Magazine declared Vista a disaster -- even as he left his job.

The harshest blow, however, comes from Joel on Software: "I've been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system -- it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes. Whenever anyone asks, my advice is to stay with Windows XP (and to purchase new systems with XP preinstalled)."

Joel remembers his Microsoft days fondly, so his words sting. Vista is, apparently, a mess. We can expect others to pile on now. Given the current mess it may be another year before Vista is ready for use.

I share Joel's opinion on Office 2007, with the caveat that Word is probably better and Excel wasn't hurt too much. I've figured out the UI now but it was a pain to learn it.

Great news for OS X. BTW, I don't expect 10.5 to ship until next summer. With Vista tanking the pressure is off Apple, and 10.5 is not looking very solid yet. They'll quietly slip it from this October into next spring, and maybe roll some 10.5 features back into 10.4.

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