Plenty of surprises with Vista -- thankfully

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 27 November 2006 20:09

Your IT - Entertainment

What consumers want is a system that ‘just works’, much like the Mac ‘just works’ for many people. Those people still have to learn a system, but the Mac’s system is easier to learn.

Microsoft is finally realising that people don’t really care about dual-core processors or 64 bits or 4Gb of RAM or a terabyte network attached storage hard drive. It’s benefits, not features, that are truly important to most people. What can I do with the system, what does it let me do that I couldn’t do before, or couldn’t do easily?

We all know that businesses will wait until their next upgrade cycle, and that many consumers will wait too. But as Vista is launched, and people get the opportunity to see it in stores, see more reviews, play with it on friend’s computers, and start seeing Vista-only computers on sale, consumers will find it hard to avoid giving Vista a spin. They’ll want to try it.

And once you’ve tried it, you’ll want it.

While Vista is yet to officially launch, with discoveries of any major problems or issues yet to come, Vista is the promise of a better computing experience that just works. And in the modern era, they just want something that will let them easily accomplish their everyday digital tasks, something that Apple has been very successful with through the Mac platform and cool software like iLife.

People want to:

- easily find information on the Internet
- easily use Internet services
- easily use email and communication with others
- easily find information on their computers with built-in fast search
- easily transfer photos from their digital camera into a photo sorting program that’s easy to use
- easily print photos on their home printer
- easily transfer music to a dedicated mp3 player
- easily trasnder music, photos, videos and more to a digital media player
- easily play games
- easily stay protected from online dangers
- easily and automatically maintaining their computer with auto backup and defrag
- easily stay organised with a calendar
- easily copy video from their video camera, and burn it to a DVD
- easily stay in touch with others through instant messaging, voice calls and video calls
- easily use a separate graphics tablet to handwrite into programs
- easily draw with the better precision of a graphic tablet's stylus over a mouse
- easily watch and record live TV
- even easily talk to their computer and see it convert speech into text before their eyes
- and much more.

Why should any of this be hard? Windows Vista is an operating system that seeks to make all of the above, and more, much easier and more accessible than in any previous Windows version.

Vista’s graphics are often described as very Mac like, but surely, that’s a good thing. Vista is looking better than it ever has, with graphical niceties that are very 21st century.