Another Texas VC

My office in Houston is a microcosm of the world at large. 2 of the 4 VCs in our office have converted from PC to Mac. I begrudgingly used Windows Vista because it came on my Kellogg laptop, while the other PC user had Vista on his tower while stalling to buy a new laptop. Our CFO uses Windows XP because he uses Quickbooks and is afraid of Vista.

Our CFO isn’t entirely irrational in his fear of Vista. Prior to Vista, Microsoft had a two tier release structure for operating systems. The ‘New Technology’ operating system (aka NT) would be released to businesses first, with a simpler OS released to consumers (remember Windows 95, 98, and ME?). These lines were merged into the business line in 2001 with Windows XP, which essentially merged consumers onto the Windows 2000 business OS line. This worked well because Microsoft had a chance to work out the kinks of Windows 2000 before bringing consumers on board. Deluded by the success of the XP rollout, Microsoft internally resolved to abandon the two tier release structure and upgrade all users together for the next OS release.

As a minor digression, I want to point out that this is a uniquely Microsoft problem to have. Apple is, ironically, strictly a personal computer (PC) company. Large companies (enterprises in IT lingo) require centrally administered directories of users with varying degrees of access to corporate networks. When someone is hired into the company you add them to the directory which gives them access to parts of the corporate network while also allocating email and intranet access. When the employee leaves the firm, you need a centralized way to take away all of their access. Microsoft solves this problem with Active Directory Services, which neatly integrates access to PCs, the network, Microsoft Exchange (ie Outlook) and a host of Web Services from a console. Apple simply doesn’t play in this space.

So out came Vista in 2006, which had some cool features for the enterprise, but nothing for your average PC user. The end user experience was woefully buggy, bloated, and complicated. Although several major issues were cleaned up with Service Pack 1, the damage was done, and consumers knew to avoid Vista. Why put up with all of the bugs in exchange for features you don’t care about like enterprise application deployment which rolls out an application to every member of your network?

So here comes Windows 7. For the first time since 2001, Microsoft is focusing squarely on end-user enhancements. I have been using the OS for the past month and it’s faster, smoother, and easier than any other OS out there (including the Apple Stuff). For folks on Vista, Windows 7 is a no-brainer. For Windows XP users like our CFO, 7 represents the simplest and best upgrade strategy to really work the web. Although it isn’t bathed in unicorn tears, I could see it attracting some Mac converts based on its ridiculously low price point (about half the price for an apple to pc comparison).