Have We Forgiven Microsoft for Vista or Changed Our Minds About Apple?
      by Wyatt WalterHave we forgotten about the Windows Vista release, or are we ready to give Microsoft another chance? Just a few short years ago, around this time, we were getting ready for the release of Windows Vista. Microsoft was hyping its new security model and consumers were busy complaining about changes they had made and how slow Windows had gotten. Meanwhile, Apple was busy with an advertising campaign slamming PCs for being virus ridden and not being “cool” among a few other things.
During the year that followed, Microsoft released Windows Vista. No matter the cause, it was a trainwreck of a release. It was too slow for consumers’ PCs, it had different locations for the same old buttons (not a bad thing, in my opinion, but people complained long and hard), and it wasn’t compatible with software that consumers were running.
When Microsoft was having its fallout, Apple and Canonical were there to clean up its mess. According to Macrumors, Apple jumped 1.41 percent of the computing marketshare in 2007 alone. That doesn't sound like a huge number, but in the consumer desktop PC market, a year is a relatively short amount of time.
Apple's market share continued to climb as it pummeled Microsoft in its ad campaign making PC users look like dolts. In 2008, their market share climed again up to 7.5%.
Then came Windows 7 and Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" ad campaign.
I'm not exactly sure which factor caused it or if it was some combination plus some other factor, but I can tell you this: It's no longer cool to be an Apple fan. The latest episode of the Mac v PC debate was sparked Microsoft COO Kevin Turner told the crowd at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference that an Apple lawyer had called him requesting that they pull their "Laptop Hunters" ad. It's clear from the comments about the article both on Digg and attached to the article itself, that standing up for Apple simply labels one an "Apple Fanboy" or a "Mac Head" and automatically wrong.
Perhaps there is a safe haven somewhere for Apple fans (away from Digg and CNET for sure), but for now it seems that consumers have once again begun standing up for Microsoft, just time for Windows 7. They seem to have forgotten all the troubles with Windows Vista. Perhaps to a fault? Probably. No operating system is a silver bullet (well nothing is, actually), but Windows 7 seems to be winning over some fans. Apple's market share has even seemed to drop slightly. Reports are showing Apple's market share down to 7.4% , a small decrease but it could indicate a plateau.
As Jason Hiner from ZDNet points out, Microsoft is no longer on the defensive, trying to thwart off ads from Apple, but on the offensive and going after Apple hard. They're back. They have chosen to do battle over the price entry point of PCs vs Macs, something that Apple can't compete with. Well, Apple can compete with it, they just refuse to try.
Microsoft also seems to be a much more open company than it was then. So open, in fact, that it has recently even released some driver code to the Linux kernel project. A move we never could have imagined even a few months ago. They have also done a much better job involving the community in the development of their new operating system and listening to users (if nothing else, just in a much more public way).
No matter the cause, consumers seem to have forgiven Microsoft (or at least forgotten) for the mess that was Windows Vista and seem to be looking forward to Windows 7, ignoring the fact that they're still running on XP and Vista. It'll be interesting to see what happens with market share when Windows 7 releases, but I'm guessing it will steal back a decent share of the market that Microsoft lost to Apple over Vista. Even Ubuntu community members have complimented it, though possibly with a bit of tongue-in-cheek.
Tags: apple, microsoft
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Jul 22nd, 2009