The Inquirer – Tuesday 30 January 2007:

VISTA WILL LAUNCH today with fanfare, parties, hypocrisy, hollow promises and tame reviews. For me, it is something different, it makes me sad.

MS will tell you that Vista is the next great thing in every way, it took billions of dollars to develop, millions of man-hours, and undoubtedly will be the best selling OS ever launched. The problem is that Vista brings almost nothing to the table that can’t be described by as three year old as “shiny”.

As I said before, to me this is a sad thing. Why? MS, possibly the richest most powerful and recognised company on the planet gave us Vista. They can buy governments to quash lawsuits, bend large companies with a mere audit, and co-opt technologies with the writ of a lawyer, and all we get is a shiny UI?

Vista could have been innovative instead of warmed over. Vista could have defended our rights instead of raping them. Vista could have been lean and mean instead of bloated and DRM slowed. Vista could have brought new ways of doing things instead of the same old same old. Vista could have been cheaper instead of a stealth price increase. Vista could have pioneered new ways of letting us use computers instead of activated tethers and licence problems. Vista could have been compatible and advanced standards instead of breaking software in the name of locking you in.

Guess what?

See why I am sad?