Bah Humbug, Vista

By Don Burnett

Well I was very curious to how well Vista is doing over the holidays. So I decided to stake out my local Best Buy and Circuit City Retailers in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I stood around for a while looking at hardware while a number of first time computer buyers. Everyone I saw there was impressed with the wide array of hardware from many companies.. However two out of five (unscientific numbers) had a question to ask.. I will walk you through what I heard..

 

Salesman: "Hi folks can I help you find anything today..."

Customer:" Well I would like to find a new computer, and I really like the hardware over here... But I do have one question can I get this without Vista but with XP. I hear from my friends it's slow and incompatible and has problems and I don't want it.."

Salesman:" Well the OS is new, it's less than six months old, it does have some problems but it is really nice. Even XP had problems when it came out three to four years ago, it's no worse than that was back then. So give it some time, but yes to answer your question THIS model's manufacturer has a downgrade program so you can get Windows XP still for it"..

Hearing this rather frequently in two stores was rather alarming.. Could this many people really have questions about the reliability of Vista. So when I talked to the sales folk and asked them, the general consensus is you can't easily fight perceptions about these kinds of issues very easily. You can "acknowledge perceived issues" and offset that. Some of them took the approach to say that Vista has problems with old hardware, but the new hardware we want to sell you is completely supported and it is not an issue at all with new machines because they are fast enough and "Designed for Vista"...

However, this perception issue is something that really needs to be turned around in people's minds. It is more widespread than I first thought it was. People hear things from others and word of mouth isn't working in Vista's favor this holiday season. However the same sales guys made a point to tell me that they had a bunch of first-time computer buyers to buy Vista and totally loved it. It was their first experience with computers and after buying it they had a very incredibly favorable response..

 

Other Questions I asked Sales folks:

What's WPF?

 

Of the unscientific 7 people surveyed,   0 people knew what it did and how it makes Windows applications more powerful and cooler graphically.

 

What's Silverlight?

Of 7 people surveyed one person told me "It's the new Adobe Flash version from Microsoft". The rest had no clue what it was..

What is Expression Studio?

Of 7 people surveyed no one knew what it was, even when handed the box, however each of them knew what Adobe CS3 and Photoshop were..

 

What is Expression Web?

Of 7 people surveyed only one knew that it was the "new version of FrontPage"

 

These are pretty disappointing things to hear this time of year, with all the change Vista brings, no one knew why they would buy it over the old Windows.

Vista Problems?? Name one...

For the heck of it, I asked the customers "Vista has problems, what problems specifically?" Well the first time buyers didn't know but their friends told them games and programs didn't work with it along with printers didn't work and they'd seen the "Mac vs PC" advertising that stuck in their mind that Vista has problems and they should buy XP (but they didn't want to buy a Mac interestingly enough).

Even with these perception issues, apparently people who have bought Vista are giving the OS rave responses that they just love using it and working with it, and it's better than they thought.. This was from a customer who had bought the machine a week earlier and was now in shopping for "Vista" software and Games for Windows. None the people who thought Vista  had problems could name a real problem with it..

It seems to me that two out of five people with "concerned"  perceptions about Vista's stability is enough that Microsoft should be really working with the retail sales channel regionally and locally to address these issues, and the salesman should have a "game plan" for overcoming objections that maybe more perceptions than fact. It's true Vista may have problems with some legacy hardware, but new machines in the local electronics stores designed for Vista with full support already there for all of the new hardware should really show folks that perceptions sometimes are unfounded. Especially with a completely supported machine platform.

The more concerns I had were mostly in the realm that no one knew what WPF and Silverlight was and how it improves both the web and windows applications user experiences with hardware acceleration as well under Vista.