Cat5bird Seat

Through a Window, Darkly

The vista on the upcoming operating system from Redmond isn't so crystal clear.

• By Mike Gunderloy
• 10/12/2005

The word for the day is “disarray.” Not in the Windows hardware sense (“disarray is the part of dis cluster that holds the disk drives”) but in the sense of the Windows Vista marketing plans. As in, do they even have any? Now, I know I’m treading on mildly dangerous ground here. I wrote this column back in August (my editors like the column early) and it'll hit the Web site in October, and even in a corporation the size of Microsoft, a lot can happen in two months. But judging by how well executed the Vista (or should I say, “the operating system formerly known as Longhorn”?) strategy has been so far, I think it’s fairly safe to say that there will still be plenty of muddle to go around.

Let’s start with the big fundamental question: What the heck is Vista, anyhow? My grad school advisor - where I studied history, by the way, not computers - drummed into me the necessity of beginning at the beginning, so let’s start with a history lesson. After a bunch of dithering around and saying that it was the next version of Windows, Microsoft finally made a big deal at the 2003 PDC about there being four “pillars” of Vista:

• The Fundamentals pillar with the WinFX programming APIs
• The WinFS next-generation file storage system
• The “Indigo” service-oriented communications subsystem
• The “Avalon” user interface technologies

What genius, by the way, decided that WinFX and WinFS should be used as acronyms for different technologies in the same product? Interview a product spokesman with a slight lisp and you don’t know which darned API they’re talking about. Oh, and “Avalon” and “Indigo” have now been renamed to “Windows Presentation Foundation” and “Windows Communication Foundation,” though even most Microsoft developers can’t seem to bring themselves to use the new bloodless names.

Fast-forward to 2005. At this point, WinFS has been dropped from the Vista release, though Microsoft promises it will be available shortly thereafter as an add-on product. I’m not holding my breath; entire alien civilizations have had time to rise and fall in the time since this file system was first announced in the time of the fabled Windows “Cairo” operating system. And in a series of announcements spanning 18 months, Microsoft has promised that WinFX, Avalon, Indigo, and WinFS will all be available for Windows XP and Windows 2003.

Um, so what exactly does that leave as a compelling feature set for Vista? New wallpaper? A new Windows start-up sound? A new Windows version number?

Oh, sure, it’s likely that there will be compromises in all of these APIs on the older operating systems, as anyone who remembers Win32s (Windows 95 on Windows 3.1, more or less) can guess. But Microsoft has done a pretty poor job of making that point or, indeed, setting any expectations at all about the way that these technologies will work across the span of supported operating systems.

If the Vista developer messaging is confused at the moment, the end-user messaging is just pathetic. There is a Windows Vista home page that you'd expect to clear up the muddle. On it, you’ll learn that Vista is intended to “bring clarity to your world,” apparently by making you “Confident, Clear, and Connected.” There’s even a vision statement: “It enables a new level of confidence in your PC and in your ability to get the most out of it. It introduces clear ways to organize and use information the way you want to use it. It seamlessly connects you to information, people, and devices that help you get the most out of life.” A more content-free statement is difficult to imagine. Perhaps wiser heads than mine think it’s just too soon to start building up any excitement for this operating system.

Drill down far enough, and you'll get to a features list, though it’s all subject to change. The key features for IT professionals are listed as being new security features, easier deployment, better searching, document thumbnails in Explorer, easy file sharing, improved performance, better reliability, and a spiffed-up user interface. I don’t know about you, but to me that list says “more of the same.” Hasn’t every Windows release promised advances in security, deployment, searching, sharing, reliability, performance, and UI? This does not sound like the revolution that Longhorn was once touted to be. Oh, wait, we’re getting file thumbnail images too. My mistake.

But one thing is clear: There’s concern inside of the Redmond halls over this Windows muddle. In late February, Microsoft brought in Michael Sievert to be the new corporate vice president for Windows product management, which puts him squarely in charge of Vista marketing. What’s notable about this? Unlike the majority of Microsoft executives, Sievert wasn’t promoted from within. Instead, he was hired from AT&T Wireless; before that, he was with e*TRADE, IBM, and Proctor & Gamble. He’s a career marketer, not a computer guy. Well, Apple did have some success with a sugar-water salesman, so maybe a soap-and-phone salesman can do the trick for Microsoft. It’s a better bet than letting the geeks continue their headlong rush towards an apparently firm ship date without any sort of serious marketing message, that’s for sure.

Speaking as a developer, I’d love to have a good reason to upgrade all of my machines to Windows Vista when it ships. Playing with the latest toys is always fun. But Microsoft is going to have to offer me a whole lot more than a box that says "New! Improved!" on the cover to get me to upgrade. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s none too soon to start making a coherent sales pitch.

Paying any attention to Vista yet? Or are you ready to close your eyes and just hope the whole thing goes away? Would you rather Auntie just came back? Brickbats and praise alike are welcome at MikeG1@larkfarm.com.

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