iTechNote

Microsoft security guru Michael Howard put the sign (the title) on his door on commemorating the completion of Windows Vista. Last week, Microsoft’s shares closed above $29 for the first time since November 2004. The market looks ready to embrace the day for Vista - Jan 30, 2007.

Vista has improved reliability and security, protected mode IE, Aero glass UI and media centricity together with gratuitous UI changes, degraded performance on older machines, new compatibility issues and high cost of migration. Despite mixed views from market watchers, Microsoft remains bullish about its latest operating system.

“Our market is so much larger now than five years ago when we introduced Windows XP. We expect Vista to be the fastest-adopted OS in our history,” said Mike Sievert, Corporate Vice-president for Windows Client Marketing.

Bill Gates has a similar view though in a different tone. Bill Gates told reporters in Europe that Vista has survived antitrust complaints and efforts by competitors aimed at derailing the operating system.

Pirate sites are getting ready too with the release of cracked Vista on torrent. The crack for Windows Vista replaces components from the final version of the operating system with those from earlier betas. This allows the would-be pirate to use a product key that worked with Beta 1, Beta 2, RC1, or RC2, with the Gold release of the operating system.