Wintel Sleaze
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer posting Microsoft execs saw problems with early Vista paints a sleazy picture of Microsoft, Intel, and the release of Vista.
Microsoft and PC makers used “Windows Vista Capable” stickers in an attempt to maintain sales of Windows XP machines during the 2006 holiday shopping season, after Windows Vista’s retail release was delayed to early 2007. The internal e-mails reveal an extensive debate inside Microsoft over the hardware specifications needed to qualify.
One message points to chip maker Intel Corp., a key Microsoft partner, to explain the decision to lower the requirements a piece of hardware needed to qualify for the “Windows Vista Capable” designation.
“In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded,” Microsoft executive John Kalkman wrote in the message, referring to a class of Intel graphics technology that doesn’t work with Windows Vista’s most-advanced graphics technology, known as Aero Glass.
In another message, Microsoft executive Mike Nash wrote that he “personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue.”
Looks to me like conspiring to “get the numbers,” and pumping and dumping an uncooked product onto unsuspecting wretches, was far more important than getting it right. The price for such unscrupulous actions may be a totally failed product and increased difficulties launching future products.
Someday, hopefully soon, the computer buying public is going to feel they have been had again and again by Microsoft and friends, and register their anger by choosing other products.
…John
