Microsoft's trick to popularize Vista: A new name

Hey, I'm back from vacation and all the hot tech news that's piled up while I was out is burning a hole in my laptop. I'll apologize for the touch of age on some of the posts I'll hit this week, but I do want to make sure you get a chance to see some of the topics you might have missed while I was out. Let's get started with the subject that never dies: Windows Vista.

That millions of users have, how do you say, negative impressions of the Vista OS is hardly news. But Microsoft says it has a strategy to turn things around.

To wit: The company rounded up a group of on-record Vista detractors, then showed them a new operating system called "Mojave." Microsoft says 90 percent of the users had positive feedback on the OS. Then the paper bag came off: Mojave was really just Vista, straight out of the box. Gotcha!

Why did the XP lovers hate Vista but love Mojave? Cnet doesn't offer a lot of details on how the tests were done, but hints that focus group testing may not exactly mimic the full experience of sitting down with Vista on a new PC or upgrading your old machine from XP. Presumably none of the focus group members had to face peripheral incompatibility problems and missing drivers, or watch their old XP computers suddenly slow to a crawl due to Vista's overbearing resource requirements. Sitting down in front of a powerful machine, configured correctly, and taking an expert-guided tour of Vista isn't an unpleasurable experience. Vista in the real world is a little different.

The real question here, though, is how far Microsoft is willing to interpret these iffy results in its attempts to market Vista and, more importantly, develop its successor. The answer looks like all the way to the bank. Microsoft is already acknowledging it is attacking this "huge perception opportunity" and is launching a new marketing campaign to promote Vista's awesomeness (with a specific eye toward Apple's mega-bash ads) that sounds like the Pepsi Challenge.

But what comes next, I wonder? If Microsoft has actually deluded itself so thoroughly that it's convinced Vista is great, it really bodes ill for Windows 7, which already looks like it's turning into Windows Vista Service Pack 2.

Real innovation? Sorry, looks like the marketing department is in charge now. Up next: Hypnosis.

UPDATE: Microsoft releases this website and video showing the hidden camera footage from The Mojave Experiment.

LINK: Microsoft looks to "Mojave" to revive Vista's image