Just putting up a comment I posted on RahulSood.com’s (founder of VoodooPC) in response to his post called Microsoft’s Next Chapter.

I’m not going to get into the details, but my comment turned into a rant and this is what I spat out all over his blog.

I think you’re giving Microsoft too much credit. To begin with, Vista’s UI is horrible. I would expect that sort of UI refinement from an open source OS. The widgets are an annoying version of Yahoo and Apple’s offering and window management is no better in Vista than XP. I’m so dissapointed in Vista. 7 years of work to deliver a product that doesn’t even have all of the initial technologies it promised.

Yes it has gaming, but for how much longer? A shift is taking place where people dont’ neccessarily want better graphics - or are not willing to spend $1000 on a graphics card that delivers ‘better’ graphics. The flop of the PS3 is a good example of how power is no longer the necessary component to success in the gaming world. Hardware needs to take a break and a focus on software needs to be applied - lets let the programmers take advantage of multiple cores and 64 bit processes.

The ‘Windows’ and Gaming world need to take a step back and a larger focus on the actual games and the OS are needed.

This is probably why Apple’s popularity is growing. There’s a great union of hardware and software in Apple products. They work with each other, and one always has the other one in mind it seems. Try running Vista on a 6 year old computer. You’ll definitely be able to run Tiger on a 6 year old piece of Apple hardware - probably Leopard too.

Microsoft is so lost and is bleeding money. Their marketing budget for Vista is obscene and unncessary and a dangerous indication of Microsoft’s current mentality.

A great indicator of how lost Microsoft is with thier Zune. You have to love how faithful subscribers to their URGE music service have no incentive to choose the Microsoft product over the Apple product- they both won’t work with URGE. In order to get music on your Zune, you’ll have to join a new music service and pay for your songs again.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

For the record - I was a huge PC fanatic (still to this day) but I am also an Apple user too… more and more Apple lately. Hey - Kevin Rose and Anand lal Shimpi seem to be on the right track with their Apple switch.

This could be connected to my changing views on things, but the gist of my mantras seems to be ‘power isn’t enough anymore’, ‘it’s more about the experience now and not just the product’, ‘it’s not how much you have - it’s what you do with it’ and the sure hell sign of getting old - ‘it just has to work’. Other current mantras in my book include ‘everything looks good in hi-def’ and ‘it’s not about money - it’s about the utility!’.