[Azselendor]

Vista had 4 main failures, as far as I can see.

1.) a really bad roll out marketing campaign
2.) It's primary competition was windows xp
3.) Needed to ship with SP1 on launch.
4.) A successful apple ad campaign that set an image for vista before vista could for itself.

#2 and #4 are really the deal breakers for vista. Vista didn't provide a reason to upgrade and I only have it because it was on the computer I bought in june. Otherwise I'd be happy with XP and possibly migrating to ubuntu right now. Apple ran a pretty sharp campaign (Mac vs PC) that define vista bad and apple as simple is now doing the same to define Windows 7 in a poor light.

I think what microsoft needs to do is declare peace on all of its corportate fronts and in the confusion, give steve job a swirly and stuff his *** into a trashcan again. Otherwise known as pointing out steve job's and apple's flaws.

Let's take apple update which updates your computer with new software. Sure, you have itunes for your ipod but it'll install safari and quicktime under the disguise of an update. That's like microsoft bundling Internet explorer with..... Windows!

Or how about the ipod/iphone/itouch comes out with a new feature or two that it should've had from day one. I couldn't understand why people keep buying new ipods every year until I realized it's to get trendy new colors and that feature that wasn't in it before. In comparison, microsoft made all the new software for the zune 2 freely availible fo zune 2 users. If they'd drop DRM lockdown, I'd buy one today.

apple is built of a linux core, so why not save money and buy a cheap intel-based laptop and install ubuntu on it for free (total cost roughly 500-700) and get the same results with PC support. Apple and macs are way, way over priced for what you get for something that in a few years will be throw-away technology because of apple's product lifecycle mentality. Like your printer or mouse or keyboard when it breaks.

Apple isn't cool. It's consumerism at the highest levels. I don't want a desktop with fancy smanchy animation built into the core, I want a meat and potatos desktop to get to the job done, one that'll take a beating and keep on running (until it crashes), and -best of all- run video games.