Livin La Vista Loca, Part Deux

You know, for the life of me I cannot recall a time when the name of a Windows release DID impress anyone in the geek community. There's a great deal of negative buzz in the blogosphere regarding the collective disdain for Microsoft's (sorry /. wankers, I'm fresh out of dollar signs) choice this round.


Frankly, I don't get it.


Not that it excites me, but that's nothing new. Camry doesn't either, but plenty of those get sold. I've never really been heavily invested in the names. It certainly doesn't offend me, at least not enough to inspire me to blog about the utter horror that is Vista.


<opinion>
You see, there's 2 groups of people Microsoft cares about reaching here. One group is the teeming unwashed masses of home users who will inherit a new copy of Longhorn ^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B Vista by virtue of a new system purchase. I doubt a significant number of the home consumer market will acquire it any other way. And I doubt they care, certainly not enough to make a different buying decision. They're not, by and large, going to buy an Apple unless it runs the software they're comfortable using - and argue as you may about the alleged superiority of the Mac user interface design, to the average Windows user its...funky. I'm NOT flaming here and I am not challenging Apple's capacity to build a good UI, but there are enough differences to cause the typical user some grief. Too painful.


Group 2 is the IT guys with the purchasing dollars at small businesses, corporations and mega-conglomerates 'round the globe, from Mike McBride all the way to Gary Reiner. They DON'T CARE. They just don't. Well, maybe Mike does, but that's because he still has his geek soul. They'll either

1. Just stay with what they know
   
2. Do some research and decide based on the cost effectiveness of Windows vs Mac vs Linux
   
3. Consult the local witch doctor.

</opinion>


Neither of these groups really includes the people complaining loudest. So don't go expecting a change.