Cyber Militia

Windows 7 was recently released to public, and there was much rejoicing.

It received a welcome warmer than hot chocolate on a cold winter night. IT columnists still haven’t grown tired of singing its praises, and the public brain is like an empty cave that echoes the general noise.

The main reason for this, many of us feel uncomfortably in the back of our heads, is the low bar set by its predecessor – Windows Vista.
When Vista was released, everybody got their undies in a bunch. They wrote the OS off faster than the metaphorical one legged man in a butt kicking contest.

Microsoft pleaded hard, but were shouted back at like the evil little meanies we all know them to be.
Their theory?
The OS is not as bad as the popular opinion makes it out to be.
Since there’s no point fighting popular opinion, they needed, instead, to come up with a replacement, and soon. There was too much at stake – it was all or nothing.

So they did a small experiment they called the “Mojave experiment”.
The premise – give everyday users computers loaded with an alleged new version of Windows – codename “Mojave”, and get their opinion of this OS as compared to Windows Vista.

The average pre-demo score for Windows Vista was 4.4.
The average post-demo score for the new operating system codenamed Windows “Mojave” was 8.5.
Infact, 94% of respondents rated the “new operating system” codenamed Windows “Mojave” higher than they initially rated Windows Vista before the demo – not a single one of them rated “Mojave” lower.
Now comes the fun part – Windows Mojave was actually Windows Vista – the only difference, for the users that took part in the experiment, was the name.

With the success of this small scale experiment under their belt, Microsoft decided to go big – by releasing Windows 7.

Apart from a revamped Windows Exporer, there really isn’t much difference between Windows 7 and Vista. Windows 7 is fully compatible with drivers written for Windows Vista and heck, they even have the same major version number for the underlying kernel! (Windows Vista was build 6.0, Windows 7 is build 6.1 … not 7.0)
What was released as Windows 7 might as well have been a major(?) service pack for Windows Vista. Windows XP Service Pack 2, anyone? But, honestly, would that be good enough for a public that has already formed an opinion? No Sir-ee Bob!

Let’s admit it, Microsoft have proved their point – they were right about Windows Vista all along – the only real problem with Windows Vista was that of public perception.
They didn’t waste anymore of their time and effort trying to reason with the mob mentality.

They yielded – they buried Vista before everyone’s eyes, secretly exhumed it and gave it an alias.

“We know Windows Vista was a bad product and all, but here’s one that’s much better – it’s called Windows Mojave Windows 7”