Microsoft lowered Vista requirements to help Intel sell incompatible chipsets

[Shrygue]

via Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/28/microsoft-lowered-vista-requirements-to-help-intel-sell-incompat/)


So now that the "Vista Capable" lawsuit is a full-blown class action, the judge has unsealed all 158 pages of emails between Microsoft execs trying to sort out what went wrong with the sticker program.

While bits and pieces have been blacked out, what remains is still fairly incredible -- although Intel's 915 chipset was initially rejected as compatible with Vista, MS execs flatly admit that "In the end, we lowered the requirements to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded" and "We are caving to Intel. We worked the last 18 months to drive the UI experience and we are giving this up."

On top of that, it seems that the company was getting direct feedback from retailers that the stickers were confusing, with Wal-Mart appealing directly to HP to pull Vista Capable stickers from low end machines, and an MS exec saying that "I was in Best Buy listening to people and can tell you this did not come clear to customers. We set ourselves up." That's pretty damning, if you ask us -- and the complete emails, linked below, are full of similar bombshells. Looks like this case may have some serious legs after all.

[the_eternal_dark]

via Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/28/microsoft-lowered-vista-requirements-to-help-intel-sell-incompat/)


So now that the "Vista Capable" lawsuit is a full-blown class action, the judge has unsealed all 158 pages of emails between Microsoft execs trying to sort out what went wrong with the sticker program.

While bits and pieces have been blacked out, what remains is still fairly incredible -- although Intel's 915 chipset was initially rejected as compatible with Vista, MS execs flatly admit that "In the end, we lowered the requirements to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded" and "We are caving to Intel. We worked the last 18 months to drive the UI experience and we are giving this up."

On top of that, it seems that the company was getting direct feedback from retailers that the stickers were confusing, with Wal-Mart appealing directly to HP to pull Vista Capable stickers from low end machines, and an MS exec saying that "I was in Best Buy listening to people and can tell you this did not come clear to customers. We set ourselves up." That's pretty damning, if you ask us -- and the complete emails, linked below, are full of similar bombshells. Looks like this case may have some serious legs after all.

What a bunch of dicks... You don't build an OS to a standard that locks out the low end market, because, in most cases, isn't that where your biggest market possibility is? The 915 is a great and capable chipset (unless you're a gamer, but why are you gaming on a laptop?), plus it's dirt cheap too. Hardware makers shouldn't have to build hardware to an OS's specs, it should be the other way around (or at least give the ability to do so, through drivers or a specialized edition for running on lower spec machines).

It eats me up that MS keeps ****ing themselves over, over and over again. First the shit reception in the market, then the mass amounts of bugs, and now the lawsuits. Watch, Mac and Ubuntu (and Linux in general) will pass Vista in the next few years, then it will be MS's turn to play catch-up. Or maybe we will see a big following with Solaris and it will jump in to give some competition.

And I think this is quite odd, but why hasn't Sony tried to develop an OS, or go in with Solaris (Sun Microsystems) and push for an MS competitor, and with the Cell processor, take on the desktop market, you know, give us a different alternative to Mac and Windows based equipment? Maybe that's just my wild pipe dream, not exactly that I'm a fan of Sony or anything.