The Mojave Experiment: Throw morality out the window!
August 21st, 2008The Mojave Experiment is, apparently, Microsoft’s response to the bad press Vista has getten just about continuously since its release. The Economist pulls some of the wool off this “experiment”.
Here’s how it worked, according to The Economist (and what I’ve seen of the result):
- Find 140 people who’s never used Vista and had heard nothing but bad stuff about it (shouldn’t be too hard)
- Re-badge “Vista” as “Mojave”
- Set up 20-something hidden video cameras to capture any positive reactions from every concieveable angle.
- Give them a 10-minute, one-on-one demo of “Mojave” performed by an experienced Vista user on the dole of the ad agency.
- Edit tiny snippets of positive reactions to provide the appearance of an overwhelmingly orgasmic response.
I had the pleasure of talking to a Microsoft-paid rep (college kid on summer break) at a computer store recently, and he and the staff at the store were having a little trouble getting the Mojave Experiment videos to play properly on a big screen in the laptop department… on… wait for it… Vista!
The MS rep touted the “features that Joe Average User are interested in”, like the search functionality. OK, most modern Linux distributions also come with file indexing. …and from what I hear the Mac file-indexing functionality is second to none. Ultimately, he admitted he runs a mix of platforms at home (Linux and Windows… can’t afford Mac), and that Vista will really only perform (spread its wings, so to speak) on “new hardware”. This means you need a machine with a dual-core CPU, at least 2GB of system RAM and a video card with at least 512 MB of VRAM. I also was terribly surprised to learn that he (as an individual) advocates “throw[ing] morality out the window” (his words, not mine), when it comes to software licensing… Yeah, go ahead and run cracked/pirated copies of Vista. At the risk of stacking soapboxes upon soapboxes, I told him that one of the reaons I run Linux is moral in nature, but it ties into an economic reality. I have a fleet of machines at home. It would cost me thousands of dollars to legitemately license MS Windows and all the software I use (if it’s even available for Windows)… or I could just run Linux, which is free (as in speech and as in beer), easy to use and super powerful. So the choice is be a criminal (whether or not you’re caught and/or punished) or be a cooperative, good citizen. He chooses to be a criminal, and I choose to be a cooperative good citizen.
Ultimately, MS Windows Vista was, is, and , as far as I can tell, ever will be a pig. No matter how much lipstick you put on it, it’s still a pig. That Microsoft has to resort to this level of deception, just to get its products in front of people is telling … and a little sad and pathetic.
Mostly, tho, I feel bad for the participants in The Mojave Experiment. First of all, the time they spent in that sparsely appointed room is time they’ll never get back. Secondly, some of them may actually run out and pick up an upgrade copy of Vista Home Basic, install it on their three-to-five-year-old hardware, and discover that a good chunk of the fancy features aren’t there, to say nothing of the abyssmal performance ther’yre likely to see.
I suppose if Vista had something genuinely useful to offer beyond bloat (and a further-extended revenue stream from a creaky, old product with flashy new paint) I might be a little more sympathetic.





