MS Vista pirated half as much as Windows XP

It’s true, Steve Ballmer (#2 at Microsoft after Bill Gates) has twisted the figures yet again!

Apparently, Vista is being pirated half as much as Windows XP.

Obviously this can be interpreted in one of two ways. Can you guess in which way Steve chose to interpret it?

“…Microsoft claims the sharp dip in piracy is due to Vista’s amped up authentication system, which it says is a ‘proven and effective way to combat piracy.’..”" (taken from engadget.com)

Of course, anyone who knows anything about computers knows that Vista is a complete botch-up, and a disaster 6-7 years in the making (yup, that pile of deuce took over 6 years to make).

There’s proof of work being done on it as early as in 2000.

It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003. Can you believe it! It was delayed over 3 years. Now, this isn’t some po’dunk company with lack of funding, or some actual valid excuse. They just made so many incorrect design decisions, that they had to keep starting over.

So, to answer the question and title of this post, I’ll use the best comparison I can think of.

Fords are stolen half as much as Hondas, therefore one can conclude that Ford must have much better anti-theft security.

Get the point?

Within its first month, 20 million copies of Vista were sold, an increase from the 17 million sales of XP within its first two months in October 2001, five years earlier.

Does this not seem funny? With the massive increase in the number of computers in each household (my household had 1 when XP came out. now it has 7).

It’s because of this that I recommend all my friends get a Mac. Sure, they’re a little more expensive, but it runs on a Unix derivative BSD kernel that is super stable and secure.

I use a mac at work, and do like it, but I prefer the flexibility of a GNU/Linux system, that’ll run on my custom built computers. Still, GNU/Linux is far from being easy enough for me to recommend to your average Joe. Then I’d just be their free tech support for years to come!

My advice. Get a mac. If you need windows, just stick with XP for as long as you can. Despite Microsoft not officially admitting the problem, I’m sure they are aware that at least everyone else hates it, and are probably rushing out the next version codenamed Windows 7. I think the next windows is Microsoft’s last shot. If they botch that up, they can kiss goodbye their market dominance, as there will be many more options by 2010. Apple will probably have OS X 10.7, there will be Ubuntu 10.4, Open Solaris: Project Indiana. FreeBSD 9, Fedora 13 etc.. All of which are becoming easier to use. Not to mention the recent gOS and EeePC stuff going on.

And, to end, an actual picture of Bill Gates showing off the latest version of windows in a press conference as it crashes 🙂