Microsoft is about to release its vista operating system, beginning with an only slightly painful $199 upgrade. we don’t have a problem with that. nor does it bother us that, before you know it, the wizard of Redmond will present its hopelessly bloated Office 2007 suite and charge loyal users for that as well. no, what really gets our goat here at the lpm committee is that we are on the cusp of another long, gruelling round of un-announced add-ons that will send Microsoft laughing all the way to the bank … again!
but don’t take our word for it. stroll through your local Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA and take a look at the computers on display. note that each unit running vista has no less than 1GB of memory. yet Microsoft says vista will run on systems with only 1/2 that. au contraire. in order to run vista effectively you must buy over $100 worth of hardware upgrades. gotcha!
ah, but the bonanza for retailers, hardware and software makers, after-market experts, and the like is just beginning. IT industry prognosticators already predict a $70 Billion wind-fall as a result of the vista release. guess who will be paying for that?
consider for example the built-in limits on video downloads under the vista regime. thanks to the ironically named Trusted Computing Alliance if you try to download a video that does not include so-called digital rights management (DRM) features or attempt to obtain such a video on a computer with a pre-vista operating system you must “choose” whether you want to see a degraded video or just not see the video at all. simply downloading the video for its own sake is out of the question. just a reminder to the Trusted Computing Alliance — there’s not much of a choice involved if the wrong decision gets you kicked out of the game.
and be warned: if legal software makers do not tow the line drawn by vista their products will suffer, and hence you will suffer. of course if software makers do fall in line then your existing operating systems i.e. Windows 98, ME, and XP, will be dogfood. can i sell you a new operating system? a new computer perhaps?
LPM RECOMMENDS: contributor Craig Bayer of LawOT.com has been reviewing vista as it pertains to legal staples like Amicus Attorney and HotDocs. we look forward to his findings. in the meantime we recommend waiting until some of the bugs in vista can be worked out later in new year. we feel the same about Office 2007. and since the leading edge is often the bleeding edge when it comes to technology, you’ll be doing yourself a favor by sitting tight for now.
as always you can feel free to agree, disagree, rant, or rave to us via the comment feature of this post or by contacting me at mmhedayat1@gmail.com. and as always, thank you for your support.
pm blog 
corrections:
1) with respect to display computers in stores: those units are not running Vista as stated in the post. instead they have a display program diagramming system features – 1 GB of memory is installed in new systems and the same amount will be needed again to run Vista.
2) with respect to downloading video: actually, Vista is checking YOUR SYSTEM for compliance with DRM requirements, not the video being downloaded. hence you will need a new monitor ($400), cd burner ($200), and sound card ($50-$75). in other words, everyone is a potential pirate and will be treated as such until Vista clears you.
nice.