Mojave – It isn’t just the desert anymore
September 21, 2008
Mojave Experiment
The Mojave Experiment was conducted by Microsoft as an attempt to combat the negative feelings generated in the press (or more possibly accurate, in the real world) towards their newest operating system, Windows Vista. As the next generation in the long lasting Microsoft operating system, Vista stumbled greatly out of the gate putting it immediately behind the eight ball of desire. In the experiment Microsoft interviewed 140 Windows XP users that had little to no knowledge of Vista. Of those interviewed 94% rated the system as an 8.5 out of 10.
To me, this experiment screams support for the need of quality assurance in all levels of manufacturing, including software. The simple fact that a company, of any size, has to release a propaganda campaign to improve the image of it’s own product reveals major short comings in its management not just its product. How does a product with so many defects get released to the public? How did management lose so much sight of what the general public wanted and/or needed? How did they let this happen? Was it the desire to beat the competition? Was it the desire to release what they felt was a better product? How does a company continue to flourish and prosper when they release software time and time again that has a bug list larger than the feature list? Or is Microsoft nothing more than one of the easiest targets of ridicule on the planet. The production of an operating system is no easy matter. The production of a bug free one, is impossible.
However, I feel that as most experiments do, and how so often the press in general does, the real facts are being skewed in favor of the desired results of the experiment. Of the 89% of the people that listed being satisfied with Vista, only 43% were very satisfied. During the experiment the participants were not able to interact on their own with the operating system nor were they asked to install a new piece of hardware. Many of these activities are where the major issues exist within Vista. At it’s early release many drivers that user’s wanted were not available, rendering their equipment either unusable or downgraded in performance. To some degree this has to be expected. With a new operating system and the new major shifts made to improve security this is bound to happen. Windows NT was a much, much more stable and secure operating system than Windows 3.1, ME, 95, and 98, but far fewer things ran or ran on NT making it not right for everyone (or for very many at all really). Did that make it a bad operating system? In my opinion no, it made it a good jumping point for XP which to me has been the most solid of all the OS’s put out by Microsoft.
Vista is taking a beating and Microsoft is just doing what it can to keep it alive long enough to fix it. Get people used to it. Then get them hooked on it. Is it the greatest things since sliced bread? No, not it any terms. Does it have some new interface gadgets that look neat, yes. Is it worth the upgrade, in my opinion no, but try for yourself. Do not love off the bad press thrown everywhere. Give the product a chance for yourself.
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