The Small Print Behind Microsoft's Mojave Experiment

There go your chances of joining the Microsoft PR team Gordon. Never mind, keep up the good fight! That said, it's just not the same since Bill left. Who are we supposed to throw virtual pies at now?

I'm fed up with people bashing Vista. It's only crap if you try to run it on a crap PC. Whether it's a big enough step up from XP is another matter, but it has a load of features that I would really miss if I went back to XP.

Ive using ms op sys since dos was its daddy
Usually they have turned out to be inovative and eventually provide great platforms for increased efecientcy or useability.
Just once though I would like to see them launch a product (which let us remember they have charged the user a high premium) that does what it says on the box from the beginning

Alex, I disagree. I run Vista on a 2 grand pc, and it's still a crap. There are still easy to reproduce bugs in the file handling, I've seen it crash in some amazingly weird ways (we're talking the GUI subsystem dying, stuff like that), and has some of the most atrocious bits of HCI design I have ever seen.
It's worth me adding that the bugs I experience are often only present in the x64 version, it seems the 32 bit version is a lot more reliable.

Stephen, It's funny, I'm running x64 on a £700 PC I built myself and it works fine! I have had wierd problems on my laptop which runs the 32bit version, so concluded the x64 version was superior. Funny our experiences differ so much.

The reason is that Windows has been steadily losing market share to its competitors over the years (Linux, Mac OS) who have seized this opportunity to go for Microsoft's jugular. I can't say I blaim them for using a little sophistry to make their product look better. If it means more people adopt it and benefit from the enhanced security & features then maybe one could say the're just using a white lie to combat a misconception? No harm done, except to their corporate reputation which was never that hot to begin with. It's not like a prime minister demanding a threat analysis be 'sexed up' to instigate a one-sided war that results in the deaths of many innocent children. Still, thanks for investigating this one G! Btw I love (to hate) Bill too.

Hi Gordon: I work on the Windows Vista marketing team and noticed your article. The Mojave Experiment certainly has created some interesting discussions. I did want to point out some of the numbers you mentioned in your story are incorrect. You said;
Here's the fact:
46 per cent of this first figure were only 'Somewhat Satisfied' with what they had seen
37 per cent rated themselves 'Somewhat Likely' to recommend Mojave
In short: 57 per cent were not very impressed with Mojave and only 46 per cent were very likely to recommend it.
Those are actually not the Mojave Experiment facts. These were facts from a Vista user flash poll from a few weeks ago and were only a subset of the following facts. The Vista User flash poll facts are as follows;
89% of users expressed satisfaction with Vista and 83% would recommend it to a friend. Of the 89% that expressed satisfaction 43% were very satisfied and 46% were somewhat satisfied. Of the 83% who would recommend 46% were very likely to recommend and 37% were somewhat likely to recommend.
The Mojave facts are as you mentioned; 89% of users expressed satisfaction with Mojave and 83% of users would recommend it to a friend or family member. You are correct that the target audience for the Mojave Experiment was consumers, not technical enthusiasts. The premise was consumers had a preconceived idea about Vista but had not experienced it for themselves. We have received the feedback that people would like to see consumers testing the operating system for themselves and we are working on bringing that component in the next phase of Mojave.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. We are interested in your feedback.
Marty