Microsofts main marketing strategy has always been to drive new hardware sales using software, knowing that to sell more operating systems they have to make your current computer first obsolescent and then, finally, obsolete.
An underlying part of this strategy is to intentionally release OS versions that they know will require upgrades to be satisfactory and then charge for the upgrades. Witness for example the way the early Vista systems were packaged with a sales pitch for the upgrade and a sealed -- don't open unless you are prepared to pay-- upgrade CD already inside the original box. They are the true master's of deceptive advertising.
They are also the champions of inefficient software, slow code, and every manner of ridiculous add-on as long as it can slow your computer or gobble up resources (plaid window backgrounds and dancing paper clips!)
Their introduction of Word as a fully pixillated word processor was still another "brilliant" thrust in this same marketing vein. They knew full well that Word would run unsatisfactorily slow on the then current hardware in comparison with byte oriented word processors, but they used their marketing power to sell MSWord anyway; thus driving hardware sales and consequently OEM OS sales. Of course the idea behind Word is an excellent one as it fully integrates text and graphics, but nevertheless Microsoft's marketing was diabolical. Microsoft has persisted to this day with their policy of only minimal backward compatibility when bringing out new versions, and they have done all in their power, both legal and extra legal, to make it difficult for competing vendors to maintain compatibility.
In many respects, Microsoft has been, and obviously remains, a very nasty company -- going back to the day they stole the guts of their first OS. Their leader for years, Bill Gates, must surely have taken lessons from Rockefeller.
Until recently, Microsoft's virtual monopoly, has permitted them to get away with these very customer unfriendly strategies.
As Linux has become increasingly popular, particularly in Europe, and "encouraged" by the many suits brought against them, they have had no choice but to clean up there act. In fact, it was during a spate of very bad publicity that Mr. Gates realized the value of philanthropic largess and began to make very conspicuous charitable contributions. In this, Mr. Gates follows the pattern of prior robber barons who fell late in life into philanthropy, after they could afford to be nice. In Mr. Gates case, however, his timing was both particularly good, and particularly bad.
Under threat from Linux, Microsoft was eventually forced to make a cleaned-up version of NT available at reasonable cost as the XP operating system -- the first really good operating system that Microsoft has produced.
These days, Microsoft is apparently feeling less of a threat from Linux, or alternatively has simply made a giant marketing mistake in backsliding into there old ways with the introduction of VISTA.
Rest assured, Microsoft will do all in it's power to introduce VISTA dependent applications demanding evermore hardware resources, use unsavory tactics to virtually force other software vendors to do likewise, and market a seemingly endless series of expensive upgrades.
)...