PDC 2008: The hard job of moving on after Vista

Remember the good old days when it seemed that a PC on everyone's desktop was a modern miracle? After recent experiences with Vista, the course Ray Ozzie may set for Windows 7 appears intended to recapture some of that magic.

Windows Vista has been described with a wide variety of adjectives, ranging from an ongoing success to, in the words of my friend and colleague at Microsoft Watch, Joe Wilcox, a "flop." The very fact that such a variety of monikers exists is all the indicator one needs that something went wrong during the lifecycle of this product.

Its initial release, with its stark, persistent, and nagging reminders of the need to maintain security, planted in users' minds the idea that something was inherently wrong with the product. That seed was nurtured and grew to fruition as a serious lingering doubt, well before Microsoft decided to start taking action.

The problem could perhaps be likened to the feeling one might get from being seated for a long period of time in the security bunker of a penitentiary. It could very well be, at any one random period of time, the safest place one could possibly inhabit in all the world -- safer, perhaps, than one's own bedroom. But its architecture reminds one of the constant danger that lurks outside, and in so doing, manages anyway to project the sense of that danger inside, making it feel unsafe anyway.

Windows Vista has been proven a far safer operating system than any of its predecessors in the Internet era. No matter; the problem is that its users generally feel unsafe, and thus conclude that Vista itself is unsafe. Thus Apple is capable of helping to set the agenda for Microsoft, with its most recent ad characterizing "Mr. PC" as allocating resources for the problem at hand this way, "Advertising, advertising, advertising...fix Vista."

Microsoft can't exactly step out into a spotlight and present Windows 7 as "the fix for Vista" -- not without saying that something in Vista's architecture is fundamentally wrong, and it's not. Since Windows 7's architecture is not a fundamental change from Vista, the company can't afford to tell its enterprise customers that they've just invested millions in a flawed product, even if it means telling customers they're wrong and the problem is with their own perception. But it can't walk away from the problem, either: While many were quite happy to let Microsoft sweep Windows Me under the rug with the much-welcomed unveiling of Windows XP, that get-out-of-jail-free card has already been played, and Microsoft has gambled too much on Vista's long-term success to make a major mea culpa now.

So what's Microsoft's plan? The part that we can see so far is this: Microsoft will step away from Vista, and position Windows 7 as something other than its predecessor, something that will remove the Vista stigma. But the way to get to that position does not appear to be decided yet, and it's obvious that different players in the company have their own ideas.

The route being "beta tested," if you will, by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie today may be the most dangerous option: a nostalgic step back into the warmer, softer realm of the PC as an appliance. But the route back to where Microsoft has already been goes through territory that it's never traversed; and we saw a hint of it this morning from Ozzie for the first time: the trend toward diminishing expectations.

"In our industry, it's only natural to be excited about the potential of new technologies, and to focus all of our energy on delivering the promise of that next big thing," Ozzie began his Tuesday morning keynote speech at PDC 2008. "But in times like these when so many of us are just pausing for a moment, taking time to reflect on our fundamentals and on values, it's been interesting for me to reflect upon the PC and Windows, and how over the years, together, they've exhibited such flexibility, such resilience, such adaptability to our changing needs."

In fairness, no one else we've seen or spoken with at PDC this week has exhibited any hint of playing the old political game of diminishing expectations; and Ray Ozzie, with his lofty and sometimes even unfathomable metaphors, is not the kind of fellow you'd expect to find coming down from the clouds. But in waxing nostalgic today, Ozzie at one point appeared to appeal for a return to a simpler era, when we could trust the integrity of the computer on-sight, without thinking twice.

"For many of us here today, it's hard to imagine a home or a teacher or a student who doesn't have some kind of access to a PC," Ozzie began his speech this morning. "It's even harder to imagine a desk in our workplaces without a PC. What would you do all day?

"For those of us who have used the PC for the past 10, 15, or 20 years, through countless events in our lives, it's easy to forget just how much this amazing tool has changed over the years, how it's grown as our needs have grown. Without thinking twice, we've grown to entrust it with our family memories, our finances, our contracts, the records of our health."

Next: Steven Sinofsky's approach, to reposition Windows 7