Vista SP1

Another month, another Forrester Research report on Windows Vista. But wait! Rather than the negative spin of last month's report, in which analyst Thomas Mendel opined that Vista was in danger of becoming as big a failure as "New Coke," this report by analyst Benjamin Gray comes to a different conclusion.

In today's podcast: Vista SP1, Facebook privacy, and Arthur C. Clarke.

Microsoft has been promoting Vista's SP1 as a big performance booster compared to pre-SP1 Vista, particularly when copying files. But my preliminary tests show that Vista SP1 can be as much as 20% slower than pre-SP1 when it comes to copying files. And XP's copying speed leaves both in the dust.

Microsoft built its empire by being faster and smarter than the behemoths of the old computing world, notably IBM. Today, with the release of Vista SP1, and the trench warfare in attempting to take over Yahoo, it's clear that Microsoft has become the new IBM. The question is, will it be able to reinvent itself as successfully as did the old Big Iron hardware maker?

For plenty of people, a big reason to upgrade to Vista SP1 will be the death of the dreaded "Kill Switch," which in essence kills Windows if for some reason Microsoft determines your copy isn't a validly bought version. Good move...but getting rid of the Kill Switch is something that Microsoft can easily do as an update without bundling into SP1. So why hold it hostage until SP1 ships? To force you to upgrade, and make the service pack's uptake numbers look better.