60 Million Windows Vista Units Out the Door
And too bad they aren't in the trash
The news reports are in. Microsoft has shipped 60 million copies of Vista since its release. The most exciting part of the news for me is that I am not one of the 60 million that will be tortured and tormented by the latest release of Windows.I normally make it through my work day (and certainly my play day) without the being inflicted with the pain of any version of Windows. My release from the prison of Windows came 1-1/2 years ago when I installed FreeBSD and Gnome on my workstation.
My only regret is not having done that upgrade long before. My productivity has skyrocketed and my frustration has diminished greatly.
Back in the days I sold computers Windows was the only portion of the systems that didn't have a reasonable dealer discount when purchased and Microsoft was the only vendor that didn't really offer any support.
Bad CPU's hard drives, power supplies and the like were promptly and at no charge replaced by their manufacturers under warranty. No luck with Windows.
The vast majority of the time when a client complained that their "computer doesn't work," they are really complaining that Windows was hosed. Now that becomes a big time sink. Small computer dealers can't tell local customers to pay $50 to "fix" a new computer!
Now after I was out of that business a former client was asking me a question about fixing Windows in public. Since I was not in my office, nor even in that business I suggested that "why don't you call Microsoft for assistance".
His reply, "OH! You can do that??"