March 18, 2008
New, improved and now with even more Vista
More than a year after the launch of Windows Vista, the first big upgrade is at hand (there’s no official word yet from Microsoft, but Amazon.com is offering the new, improved version for shipment tomorrow.)
Microsoft must be hoping the arrival of Service Pack 1 will mark a turning-point for one of its most troubled big software releases. After years of delay and a redesign that stripped some of the original core features out of the operating system, Windows Vista finally arrived with a slick “glass” interface and a whole bundle of glitches.
In terms of reputational damage, even that pales in comparison to the black eye from the recent revelation that Microsoft manipulated the marketing message for some PCs prior to the software’s launch (it turned out that “Vista capable” meant anything but, at least if you wanted to run versions with the new interface, which most people did.)
The release of an SP1 is normally the signal for all-important corporate customers to start using the latest version of Windows. For Microsoft, the acid test for Vista is finally at hand.
