[Cross-posted from Bink.nu]
I just got back from Redmond, where Steven and I attended a small, private conference about Windows Vista. The conference was called Longhorn Labs – we even got hats and backpacks monogrammed with “Longhorn Labs” and a beaker logo. Better yet, we got the latest MS swag – Windows Vista hats :-). I’m not yet allowed to talk about most of the content of Longhorn Labs, but I am allowed to talk about my “emotional reactions” (aka feelings) of what I saw and the experience I had.
This time, we didn’t meet with marketing people - we met with people that are actually responsible for features in Vista. So what are my reactions? I’m really excited about what Microsoft is doing with Vista.
Most people that I know have real high standards for Longhor… erm… Vista (more on the name change in a second). Well, guess what: Microsoft does too! (This was apparent from all of the excitement from the MS staff)
On Thursday, the day before Longhorn Labs, the owners of Neowin, Activewin, OSNN, and TweakXP we’re sitting in my hotel room. Robert Stein from Activewin told Bink that he just posted about Vista. Bink looked at me, took *my* laptop, and posted the news (which is why the original Bink article was credited to me – he didn’t even log me out! Within seconds I grabbed my laptop back and was performing a “whois” on just about every possible vista domain that Microsoft would register. Neobond from Neowin and Electronic Punk posted the initial “Longhorn might be named Vista” articles. No more then 2 minutes later, I had hit the jackpot: windowsvista.us was registered to Microsoft. I went back to “my” (well, really bink’s) article, and added the new information :-). Neobond and Electronic Punk amended their articles with the new information, and then Steve Sinchak from TweakXP (seriously) starting buying hundreds of dollars in domains… heh… So, Microsoft, thanks for getting us all in the same hotel room. We would have never positively figured out Vista a day early if it wasn’t for that :-P.
So, back to the name. Windows Vista.
- My initial reaction: “Wow.. this sucks.”
- Ten minutes later: “Crap… it still sucks…”
- Six hours later: “Hmm, still isn’t my cup of tea.”
- Next morning: “Vista. Windows Vista. Hmm, kinda has a nice ring.”
- Next afternoon: “Vista isn’t that bad. Just takes a little getting used to.”
So yeah, Vista has grown on me. OKAY, sometimes I have a negative thought about the name, but it’s been very positive since day #2 ;-). In the end, Vista is a name. Windows NT 6.0 is going to be one darn cool Operating System, so call it whatever you like; just don’t call it ugly ;-).
If you have been visiting bink.nu since the windowsxp.nu days, now is the time to start getting excited again. We’re going to have all the fun that we’ve had with the XP betas, and plenty more. After all, the viesta is starting ;-).
Posted
Jul 24 2005, 11:15 PM
by
Ryan Hoffman