Microsoft – The uncertain software developer
It amazes me that after the past several years of problems that people have had with Windows Vista, that Microsoft has chosen to make it more difficult to upgrade to Microsoft 7. Since the launch of Vista, many people have refused to subject themselves to the change that Vista provided, mostly the number of problems that have been obviously apparent to Microsoft. Numbers of organization and business IT department have refused to migrate their vast quantities of XP machines to Vista. In many cases these companies continued to install XP on machines that are new, paying extra to keep with XP. Now Microsoft states that in order to Install Windows 7, you have to backup your entire drive and then reformat before installation.
I can see many many frustrated IT departments who are going to not upgrade but slowly wait for their XP machines to die in order to avoid the upgrade. I could not image any IT department wanted to deal with possible lost files, reinstalling all the applications again, resetting all the preferences, and then hoping everything works. I believe this will be a slower launch than expected. And what really surprises me is this is not new to them. Lets look at the advances from the past. First Windows 3.11 to Windows 95. Many of the applications did not work with windows 95. Windows 95 to 98 and even the use of Windows NT and XP was pretty easy. But then Vista came along and It was like moving from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95, a very cumbersome process. Now with the introduction of Windows 7, the backing up of files they are choosing to do it again. Will the madness ever stop?
There is a saying that imitation is the best form of flattery, and I guess that is what Microsoft is saying to Apple. With the introduction of the Microsoft store the look and feel is that of a wannabe Apple store.