Microsoft "capable" of appealing (and yuk!)

That'll be IT Blogwatch: in which Microsoft pushes back, amid criticism of its "Vista Capable" certification program. Not to mention gross food...

Gregg Keizer reports:

Microsoft ... asked that a lawsuit claiming that it duped consumers in a Windows Vista marketing program be suspended while the company appeals a judge's decision to grant the case class-action status. If granted, the motion would also postpone any new disclosures of potentially embarrassing company e-mails ... Microsoft ... claimed [it] had already produced nearly 50,000 pages of internal documents as part of the lawsuit's discovery process. Continuing the case pending appeal would likely mean disclosing even more documents. If the class-action status is denied on appeal, the money spent digging up messages and memos would have been wasted, and any negative publicity would generated needlessly, Microsoft argued. more

Jonathan Schlaffer reminds us:

It all goes back to the Vista Capable “certification” program that Microsoft labeled all those computers with that couldn’t run the advanced features of Vista. In fact, the company did so to help Intel sell systems with it’s low-end graphics chips that were not capable of running Aero Glass ... The program helped Microsoft sell Vista and Intel sell it’s useless chips ... This will be expensive undertaking for Microsoft if the courts hold up the class action status. Employees will need time off to testify, Microsoft will have to pay lawyers (larger) sums of money but in the end, I think Microsoft is really in for it, as much as a multi-billion dollar software company with 95% of the OS market can be “in for it.” There’s really no making up for this. Reduced prices on Vista aren’t helping but driver and software support has improved. For some, it’s too little, too late. more

Preston Gralla probably grumbles:

Microsoft's attempt to get a judge to throw out the Vista "junk PC" suit shows off every aspect of the lawyer's art: It's misleading, factually incorrect, and stresses legalisms over common sense. It also flatly contradicts emails from Microsoft officials ... [But] if the person who should know more than anyone on the planet about Vista --- the Microsoft official in charge of it --- didn't know that Vista Capable PCs couldn't run Aero, then how could Microsoft expect that ordinary consumers should know? ... In business, when you make a mistake, you have to pay for it. With the Windows Vista PC scheme, Microsoft very clearly made a very big mistake ... Microsoft can make all of this much simpler on itself. It should just settle the suit now, and move on to other things...like developing Windows 7. more

The IT Nerd blasts off:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why Microsoft wants to prevent further digging around in their and their OEMs’ email archives ... It’s simply bad for business and public opinion. Plus it reinforces the view that Vista sucks. In my humble opinion, Microsoft got caught red handed doing something it shouldn’t have done and now they’re trying to manage the spin cycle now that it’s out in the open. If they were smart, they’d apologize, pay some token amount and move on. That would work for no other reason than to get the story out of the mainstream media and out of blogs like this one. more

Steve Poftak says it's a cautionary tale:

Martin Lomasney, an old West End political boss from Boston, is best remembered for his warning to young politicians everywhere — “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink”. The saying is updated on his wikipedia page by none other than Eliot Spitzer — “never put it in email”. And it bears repeating in the modern era — any communication (by law, for a public official, and, in fact, for most of us) is potentially public, a cautionary tale for emailers and texters of all ages. more

value_added enjoys the spectacle:

On the one hand, you have a monopoly forced into a measure of transparency and accountability. Then you have that monopoly's shortcomings being made the subject of stories in The New York Times ... The lawsuit will most likely be decided using a "reasonableness" standard, and the outcome will probably be similarly reasonable, like coupons or some such nonsense. The more interesting question is whether Microsoft itself is Ready(TM) or Capable(TM) to address the more fundamental problems of Vista, and what Windows users forced into upgrades by a variety of means will have to contend with in the interim. more

This Anonymous Coward wonders, "Whatever happened to the marketing department?"

The one thing Microsoft were always great at was marketing. Now, apart from the mess they've already got themselves into, they're still not seizing the great way out that's been presented to them. All they have to do is give away some vouchers that are only useful if you have Vista (that's basically how class action lawsuits end) and make a big splash out of how the only problems with Vista were the substandard hardware originally approved for it when in fact to get the power of Vista you need the latest kit. This is easy stuff. Anyone should see it. Why the hell would they think they're better off pretending that the **** performance people are seeing is Vista working properly? more

But Lukas Beeler doesn't get it:

I remember reading the document detailing the requirements "Vista Premium Ready" and "Vista Capable". It was obvious that the "Vista Capable" label just meant that the machine could run Vista - nothing more, nothing less. You wouldn't have fun with such an underpowered machine. So for me it was obvious - we recommended customers to buy machines which at least qualified for Vista Premium ready. Many of them have since upgraded to Windows Vista, and are quite content with what they have ... What are those people complaining about? That they didn't research what "Vista Capable" entails? That they have no clue on how to do IT? more

Lael Tucker loves a car analogy:

Lets say a car company markets a gas powered car as an "electric motor ready" car. "Sweet" says I the consumer; next year when the company starts selling electric motors, I will be able to stick one in my car. Then next year rolls around, and the only electric motor that will fit in my "electric motor ready" car will only let me go 15mph; oh and the batteries will take up the rest of the car, meaning I can't carry any passengers or cargo. And not too surprisingly all of that was left off the "electric motor ready" car marketing material. more

And finally...

• Which “food” is Grosser?

Buffer overflow:

• Emil Protalinski: Dear Computerworld, there's a reason why IE8 breaks the web
• 4sysops: First impressions of Adobe AIR - Can RIAs replace desktop apps?
• Martin LaMonica: Study: Cloud computing to brighten future of data centers
• Jeremy Zawodny: The "No Laptop" Meeting Rule
• Joel Hruska: Fighting the black market: crypto-locks for CPUs, other ICs
• Martin McKeay: They grow up so quickly: Club Penguin

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• Sharon Machlis: Remember floppy disks?
• Frank Hayes: Frankly Speaking: See the future
• Robert L. Mitchell: Why I hate Windows: Reason #42
• Mark Hall: Unclogging wireless data
• David Haskin: The end of Wi-Fi hotspots? Dream on
• Seth Weintraub: Adobe Flash now crashing Mac browsers?
• Douglas Schweitzer: Nothing lasts forever, but a year and two weeks?..C'mon!
• Shark Tank: Wrong, wrong, wrong!
• Shark Bait: Thanks to the "whole" team

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• G-Archiver steals your passwords (and CUBOCC)
• SDK and Exchange for iPhone (and not mush-room left)
• Steve Jobs hates Flash (and Ada luvs Chaz)