Windows Vista: When An Upgrade Constitutes a Downgrade
It seems like it’s ripped from an Onion headline, but no, it’s real: Microsoft is quietly allowing users who buy computers with Vista on them to “downgrade” to Windows XP. Microsoft can throw all the numbers they want at everyone to try and spin it that Vista is doing really well, but anytime you have to offer a downgrade option, nothing more needs to be said.
Anytime you launch a massive upgrade to a product and people start demanding refunds or options to go back, you’ve failed. It happened recently to Apple with iMovie – users did not like iMovie ‘08 as compared with iMovie ‘06 (I haven’t used either enough to really have an opinion, both seem pretty good to me) – but a piece of software like iMovie is obviously nowhere near the level that an operating system is at.
Do you think users are going to be demanding to return to OS X Tiger when Leopard comes out next month? I highly doubt it. Apple delayed the release just to make sure they got everything right. Sure, the PR hit sucks at the time, but think of it compared to this embarrassment Microsoft has to go through. Upgrade to Vista, it’s the all-new, slightly worse version of Windows!
