Software Trends: VISTA Operating System (OS) Has Not Caught on Yet

Microsoft has set the selling style, and Mr. Gates has shown the whole sales world, a way it can be done; make deals with the builders of the device to include your stuff, and then tell folks it can be improved. It works, and it works so well that other companies are now trying it, "Oh that's nuts Dana, name one..." Glad you laid down that challenge; let's talk GM and "On Star!" Which allows you to continue service after the one year free trial offer wears off. Microsoft does the same thing with software, and they set the pace, they established the style and the rest of us are just now waking up to it.

That is where the problem comes in for Microsoft, just like every company before them, they have become glutted with the fame of it all, and they are starting to believe their own press. What makes this fatal is the model may fall out of trend, or become less cutting edge, less on the first lips of the purchasers, when that happens you've lost the buzz, you've lost the edge for customers, and they will not be buying your stuff for long.

IBM didn't believe that this could happen to them in the 70's, they felt like they owned the computer world, but a lot of smaller, faster, leaner meaner marketing companies moved in and filled that void, the next thing that IBM knew, they were losing sales left and right, and in danger of totally losing their company. IBM believed they were beyond any sort of market controls because of their penetration and market that existed, where they didn't see was three years into the future and a small company called Traf-o-Data.

Is Microsoft today where IBM was in the 70's? Are they losing touch with their own model? Does this place that company in danger? The answer is NO, maybe and NO- the no's are capitalized on purpose- Microsoft learned from IBM's business model problems and has ensured that they are diversified into so many markets that they have what Phil Town, "Rule Number One" and other investment books calls, a "deep moat." Microsoft is solid as a company today. But the software side of the house may be experiencing some difficulties which can occur when there is little competition. Is the company in any danger of failing, absolutely not.

What does any of this have to do with Vista, Microsoft's latest entry into the operating system market, simply put, the company which has developed it isn't as strong in software as they once were, but they are still ahead of the closest competition in operating systems by many football fields.

Apple has an operating system called OS/X or "OS ten" as it's known, which is fantastic, but Apple doesn't capture as much of the market for PC's as does the Big three computer makers, Dell having still the lion's share of that kill. As a result, Microsoft has always had a weak release Beta, the pre test prior to release of software, to "get the bugs out". Microsoft has always had notorious problems with fixes in its operating systems, but, the public has learned about this, and that is problem one for Vista- folks are waiting six months to a year beyond release for "bugs to be worked out."

Market buy in from the manufacturers for Vista was weakened because much of XP was still on hand, the sales paradigm on hardware has slowed, and even though there are billions of purchasing potentials in the market world wide, the hardware sales market has slacked. So combining the Beta drain and the XP glut created a slower residual pre market by new computer inclusion for the software. This is then the second major area where Vista ran into some difficulties.

Third is the resistance to change, or, already have an operating system we like, situation. This existed for XP with Windows 98, especially for those of us who had gone into the second edition of that operating system; made sure we had all the updates and the tweak UI programs, and had learned to live with that OS. Vista is caught in that strange place where people have learned XP and have learned to get along with it, and they aren't willing at this time to change. This is the third reason Vista hasn't caught on yet.