It’s really astonishing how Microsoft is failing their customers. Here are two of Microsoft’s biggest proponents absolutely SLAMMING Vista ( Jim Louderback is the Editor of PC Magazine, and Joel Spolsky is a famous developer that came from Microsoft). Even the box it comes in.

Rightfully so. Vista wasn’t even close to being ready to ship. It probably won’t be for 6 more months. Actually, it never will be. But the ecosystem that lives around Microsoft will eventually intervene and shore up the OS, because it will be forced to.

But how does this happen? How is it that companies with so much money and opportunity can get things so wrong? Is it hubris? Politics? Greed? I don’t really know. But to spend 6 years and countless millions to produce something inferior to your last model is something even the American auto industry hasn’t done. Sure, their improvements haven’t kept pace, but they rarely go BACKWARD.

If you are huge and own the world, you can keep this up. For a while at least,  because people feel they have no choice. If you don’t own the world, this is not an option. You must make your product better – all of the time. Just to stay in business.