Windows ‘Mojave’ Video Posts

Last week we showed a video of the Mojave Experiment to a small group of folks here on campus.  Today we are excited to share the results with the public.

For those new to the Mojave Experiment, it's a focus group effort we initiated a few weeks ago. We interviewed and polled 120 participants in San Francisco, in hopes of better understanding everyday users' perceptions of Windows Vista and seeing whether there really is a gap between perception and reality. We wanted to see how people reacted to Windows Vista when they were not aware they were seeing Windows Vista. We recorded our discussions, and today you can see them for yourself.

Some other facts about the research: 

  • The focus group took place over three days in San Francisco and was conducted earlier this month.
  • All participants were either Mac, Linux, or users of versions of Windows that came before Windows Vista. Respondents were chosen from the focus group organizer's database, called at random, but then selected based on having a low perception of Vista (<5 rating on a scale of 1-10).
  • The participants were given a demo by a trained retail salesperson - geared towards the experiences they seemed most interested in following a series of interviews. While the retail salesperson drove the demo, it was geared by the interests and direction of the participant.
  • We did not use some geeked out or custom built PC. We used an HP Pavilion DV2500. It had 2GB of RAM and was running an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz. The OS was a 32 bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
  • Of the 120 respondents polled, on a scale of 1:10 where 10 was the highest rating, the average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4. After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave an average of 8.5.

Finally, some people have asked if Mojave is the big marketing project we're working on - it's not. The Mojave Experiment is just that: an experiment we conducted on the fly that yielded interesting results. We're publishing the video today because we think you'll also find it interesting.

Tags: , , , ,

Comments

  1. Nathan Dbb
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 2:22PM  

    Just like an SUV test drive!!!

    If you gave people an SUV to drive for 10 min, but they never had to park it or fill the gas tank, people would love the big seats and smooth ride. Then blame the media/blogs/PR for people not liking SUVs.

    Quoting Chris Flores:

    "The Mojave Experiment is just that: an experiment we conducted on the fly that yielded interesting results."

    If this is an experiment, it shows the quality of work that has created Microsoft Vista. The subjects were lead around the OS by the nose -- this was not daily use. Where is the control?

    These users did not have to do any of the things are broken, so Microsoft Vista looks good. As soon as they own the computer, and have to do the weird things that users like to do -- then we will see the rating drop to 4 or lower.

    This is and advertisement with an elaborate premise and a thick coating of theatrics, not anything more.

  2. mkyte
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 2:23PM  

    Love the video wall built in Silverlight. Oh wait, it's Flash

  3. Balcor
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 3:08PM  

    Good marketing ploy for those that can't see the forest for the trees.  

    The issues I have with this:

    1.  Was there any other software installed on the machines?

    2.  Did the users actually get to play with the OS or did they just watch a MS expert run it?

    3.  You say it's not a top end machine but the vast majority of people out there do not have core2duo machines yet ... so that would still be considered a vast upgrade from what the majority of users have currently.

    As a user and an IT professional... I'd have to say Vista falls below XP Pro significantly and even further below OSX.  In fact, the only good thing I can say for Vista is the desktop wallpaper looks a lot nicer than XP Pro.. and that's it.  

    ps.  As for searching.. I've yet to encounter an end user that actually uses the search feature in ANY version of Windows.  People just go to "Documents" and find the file they want.  I think the whole indexing feature is one of the big slowdowns for Vista.  I know Windows Desktop Search in XP pretty much killed most machines that had less than 1gb of RAM.  

  4. dovella
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 3:10PM  
  5. mkyte
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 3:37PM  

    Already have. Thank you. OS X 10.5 with XP in Boot Camp (Vista takes up way too much HD space).

  6. dovella
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 4:00PM  

    mkyte

    you love

    crash cover flow, crash front row, crash safari

    reste P ram reset Vram

    incompatibility and big fat price hardware?

    great productivity

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Uhr6IKA6Q

    who is fat ??

    http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coffeehouse/409176-Who-is-Fat/

  7. BuckFix
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 4:53PM  
  8. CrioFreeze
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 4:54PM  

    In spite of the developing flame war with propaganda and generalizations being mixed with facts and fired at posters on BOTH sides of the isle, no one has touched on the very basic point (in my eyes) of this experiment:

    In spite of the propaganda put forth by Apple ("I'm a Mac!") and other sites, blogs, news stories, etc. Vista is not bad at all. Microsoft is showing that, when you remove influences of anti-Vista propaganda, users are impressed with Vista and are willing to try it.

    I thought the “I’m a Mac” commercials were cute at first. Eventually, as the campaign wore on, they got more and more outlandish to the point of skirting utter falsehood. Anyone in IT could look at the ads and see how painfully misleading they were. Experienced users could tell the fact from BS but, to the computer-novice public, those ads were very convincing.

    I use many operating systems in the course of my work, from Linux to MacOS to Windows, and I think all of them have their merits. They all excel in one way or another. To discount Vista would be premature and closed-minded. I could give a ton of reasons why Visa was lacking when it came out but that would be living in the past.

    I built a system recently and installed Vista Ultimate. It was the easiest install i have ever done. Unlike XP, the basic drivers included with Vista allowed me to use my NIC, something I rarely if ever saw without manual driver install in XP. This is just one example from my own experience on how I think Vista made things a little better.

    Don’t like UAC? Turn it off. Don’t like the new start menu ? (me too) Switch to the old style. Most of the things I have seen that annoy end-users are features that are easily disabled.  After that I rarely hear complaints.  People struggle, sometimes violently, against change. Vista being poor out of the gate did not help the situation, but in the end, it’s an OS that my company and I rely on.

    So, after several months on Vista, I am happy with it and have had no major issues. To be fair, it has taken some getting used to, but I am happy I upgraded.

  9. dovella
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 5:04PM  

    Apple = FUD!!!!

    Fat hardware

    Fat Price!!

    Stop trolling!

  10. Dragonarmour
    Posted on: July 29, 2008 at 5:43PM  

    I worked at Dell when Vista was released.  Dell did not leap into Vista, in fact, nearly a year later when I was laid off Dell had made no moves towards upgrading to Vista.

    Ask yourself why one of Microsoft's biggest and most loyal partners would not jump on the Vista bandwagon?

    However, another comment to the posters here.  

    You have very short memories.

    This all sounds very much like the bruhaha when XP was delivered.  It did not run well on old hardware.  It did not support some software and drivers were missing.  

    Dell waiting a while to upgrade from Windows 2k also.

    Windows Vista is ready for primetime finally.  The problem is that there was a concerted Anti-Vista campaign that XP never had to deal with.  Companies were ready to upgrade to XP as soon as their hardware would handle it.  Also, the difference in hardware requires between 2k and XP was smaller.

    Mojave and other projects are an attempt by Microsoft to do two things, one honest and one...well...market driven.  They want to see what public opinion is of Vista when there are no preconcieved notions.  Everyone "knows" that Vista is slow and clunky and unusable, so they tell people it is something else, and see what they say.

    It does however also give them fodder for a new marketing campaign that has nothing to do with Vista being better.

    Last comment.

    While I think Vista is okay now (note okay, not great), it is far from perfect and...most importantly...

    ...it has big upgrade costs (because of hardware) and...

    ...it offers no compelling advantages.

    Advantages?  Sure, it has them, but not compelling ones.  For many businesses who are not upgrading hardware this year it may make more sense to wait for 7.

    And, I work for the IT department at a state agency, and we won't be upgrading any time soon, but several of us are using Vista at home to get ready.

Trackbacks

  1. Posted by: Paul Mooney on July 29, 2008 at 9:44AM

    Windows ‘Mojave’ Video PostsThe Windows Vista blog has at last shared a video of the much talked about...

  2. Posted by: GottaBeMobile on July 29, 2008 at 10:23AM
  3. Posted by: Bob's Blog on July 29, 2008 at 4:26PM

    Check out the Mojave Experiment . I think you will be surprised and entertained. Background Windows Vista

  4. Posted by: David Overton's Blog on July 29, 2008 at 6:42PM

    I have to admit I really like this – take people who rate Vista as a ZERO, show them a new operating

  5. Posted by: Team Blogs at Microsoft on August 14, 2008 at 6:58PM

    132 Microsoft Team blogs searched, 59 blogs have new articles in the past 7 days. 122 new articles found

Recent Posts

Tags

View more
© Copyright 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.   |   Privacy Statement