opinion When software behemoth Microsoft burped up its Windows Vista platform in late 2006, your writer spent quite a bit of time asking large Australian organisations whether they planned to deploy the new software on their corporate desktops.
The answer was a resounding 'not on your nelly' '¦ as IT managers around the nation did their best to hold their noses and back away from the malodorous operating system.
This reply came despite the fact that almost all of the companies, government agencies and other institutions queried were still running Windows XP '” an operating system first released in 2001, which had since received a billion patches, updates and retro-fits to bring it into the modern age. The problem, as most reading this article will be aware, was that for all of its flaws (and believe me, XP still has a legion '¦ including the difficult issue of how to wake gracefully from hibernation), Microsoft's most popular operating system was relatively stable.
Vista, on the other hand, was not.
Following the Vista disaster, it took Microsoft three years and, no doubt, cost Windows President Steven Sinofsky (pictured, above) many of his rapidly dwindling grey hairs, for the company to fix its mistake and give birth to the sweet-smelling Windows 7, which the entire industry has embraced like the true heir to the Windows throne that it is '¦ leaving the Vista usurper behind in the dust.
