Microsoft slowly edges away from Vista

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 28 October 2008 16:00

IT Industry - Strategy

The odd thing about this re-launch is that, to be honest, nothing much has changed. At least not when it comes to the in-your-face aspects of the design. Sure, Microsoft now has that umbrella holding page to direct you to one of the three blogs on offer, but that is about it.

The real changes are far more subtle, much more under-the-skin of Microsoft corporate thinking it seems to me. Much more a case of starting to make the move away from Vista and steering the 'hearts and minds' battle towards Windows 7.

Both the Windows Vista Team Blog and Windows Experience Blog are exactly the same blogs, content-wise, as they were before the re-design. Clearly Vista is to talk about Vista and Windows 7 to talk about Windows 7. So where does Windows Experience sit amongst the three blogs?

The Windows Experience Blog is being written by Brandon LeBlanc, already well known for his contributions to the Vista blog. LeBlanc says it will "continue to talk about anything related to the cool and interesting Windows experiences people can have with Windows."

Considering that the focus of the 'team' blogs is to deliver "important news and announcements" for the consumer and "Windows enthusiast" in a "personable way" I doubt that there will be any shortage of product massaging content.

LeBlanc promises that new blogs will be added to what he calls a community of Windows blogs, stating that Microsoft is "committed to building this community of Windows blogs – this is just the beginning."

Certainly it seems committed to moving people away from getting straight to the Windows Vista Team Blog because the old 'windowsvistablog.com' URL now redirects straight to the new umbrella page at 'windowsteamblog.com' instead.

Windows XP is noticeably absent from the Team and the Experience, despite it proving to be something of an invincible OS in the eyes of the people who really matter - Windows users.