Microsoft may soon be defending itself from a class action lawsuit over its 'Vista Capable' marketing campaign, and several of the vendor's channel partners aren't the least bit surprised. Microsoft launched the Vista Capable campaign in order to keep PC sales strong after its decision to delay the release of Vista to consumers until after the 2006 holiday season. Consumers who bought a PC with the 'Vista Capable' sticker would get an XP machine and then later be eligible for a free or discounted upgrade to Vista.
What the campaign didn't specify was which of the four versions of Vista -- Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate -- a PC was capable of running. And according to solution providers, therein lies the rub.
What the campaign didn't specify was which of the four versions of Vista -- Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate -- a PC was capable of running. And according to solution providers, therein lies the rub.
It still says Windows Vista, right? It was the same with XP. There weren't different stickers for Home and Professional.
It still says Windows Vista, right? It was the same with XP. There weren't different stickers for Home and Professional.
Nevertheless though, you are right.
Later on we got the "Vista Ready" labeling, which meant you could run Home Premium or Ultimate.
This was all very well stated in the brochures (for costumers).
Last edited by morphen on 14 Feb 2008 - 14:01
Making no references to which version of Vista is being referenced, and merely stating "ready" or "capable" is deliberately ambiguous.
It is capable of running Vista hence "Vista Capable"
Nope. Claimed to be deceptive. You are arguing against a statement that wasn't made.
It is capable of running Vista hence "Vista Capable"
Just like Nvidia's 8600 cards are "capable" of running DX10. Capable at 10FPS! That is a not a satisfactory user experience.
it was all them, its what they do after all
Or are you just spreading negative comments on Microsoft for no reason (yet again)?
Or are you just spreading negative comments on Microsoft for no reason (yet again)?
Actually, you seem to have also gotten the terms a bit confused, yourself.
It is "Vista Capable" and "Vista Ready". No mention of "Basic", "Premium" or "Ultimate" nonsense is allowed.
No.. wait. Looks like I might be confused again. The Microsoft website mentions "Capable" and "Premium Ready", so it seems that they mention a version on their high-end sticker, but exclude it on their low-end sticker.
If this lawsuit is successful it says a lot about American society and will significantly change advertising and marketing. Get ready to see a legal disclaimer on absolutely everything.
I've also seen Vista Premium Ready stickers on some laptops. Seemed pretty self explanatory for me, but I guess MS should have put more specific stickers for the idiots (average joes/janes) out there. Seems everyone just wants to sue MS to get a piece out of them.
If people are too lazy to find out what features rely on what hardware, then how is that MS's fault? Vista will work on all Vista stickered machines. The 'premium' retail editions will run on Vista Premium systems... how is this confusing?
No offence to Americans as a whole, but seriously.... your just going to end up being a country full of lawyers and insurances at this rate. Just more end-user ignorance pushing up costs for everyone else.
If people are too lazy to find out what features rely on what hardware, then how is that MS's fault? Vista will work on all Vista stickered machines. The 'premium' retail editions will run on Vista Premium systems... how is this confusing?
No offence to Americans as a whole, but seriously.... your just going to end up being a country full of lawyers and insurances at this rate. Just more end-user ignorance pushing up costs for everyone else.
-No, "Vista" will not necessarily run on all "Vista-stickered" machines. Come on, that's an easy one.
-By the way, what are "Vista Premium systems"? Are the computers that I build "Vista Premium systems"?
-Why couldn't MS simply have specified which of their pointless versions of Vista ran on each machine?
(Oh yeah, that's right: such a tactic will eventually take even more money from consumers than the already ridiculously overpriced (say, by 400% in some cases) pre-built PCs do)
-No "offence" to you, but seriously... "your" just going to end up on the wrong (see: "poor"
Seriously, I was wondering how long it was going to take before some greedy people decided to sue someone over this. But any IT person knows that a "Vista Ready" or "Vista Capable" machine is just a PC that runs XP Pro awsome... and will probably run Vista Home/Home Premium well... I never expected for a second that a vista ready or vista capable machine would be anything more than barely able to run vista
Last edited by Ogmius on 14 Feb 2008 - 22:56
Then why would you even want to think of downgrading to Vista.
Gee, there I go again, stirring up the pot.
I can certainly see both sides of the issue, but I don't think that Microsoft did anything wrong- certainly not intentionally to dupe consumers.
Thanks the gods that SOMEONE has a sense of sarcasm, Oh, it wasn't meant to be sarcastic??? Well it damned sure ought to have been!
"certainly not intentionally "
I think that's the crock of the whole thing. Microsoft, again, did something without thinking it thru.
My laptop is 2 months close to two years of age and it was tagged by a sticker as Vista Capable. Its 1.66 core duo (not core 2 duo) has 1gb of RAM and it runs vista ultimate smoothly.
There is nothing wrong with this Vista Capable campaign as long as the computer tagged can run aero and premium/ultimate versions. Im sure there are computer with the sticker than can only run Vista Basic. Maybe this is the main concern among customers.
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