Microsoft accused of shifting goalposts for Vista Capable

 

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Posted on 17 Nov 2008 at 13:29

Microsoft lowered the threshold for hardware that could carry its Vista Capable logo in order to mollify Intel, newly released court papers have revealed.

Disclosed as part of a class action lawsuit against Microsoft, the papers, filed by Dianne Kelley, lawyer for the plaintiffs, reveal that Microsoft lowered the requirements so that certain PCs with Intel chipsets that were not capable of running Vista features such as the Aero Glass interface would still be entitled to carry the Vista Capable branding.

The lawsuit argues that Microsoft misled customers by describing PCs that were not capable of running the latest version of Windows as “Vista Capable” and as a result those customers paid more for their PCs than they would normally.

One Microsoft executive is quoted in the filing as saying that if the requirements were not changed it could cost Intel billions in lost sales.

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini is said to have personally thanked Steve Ballmer, his opposite number at Microsoft, for the change, though Ballmer has denied he knew anything about it.

But Jim Allchin, then co-president of Microsoft's Platform and Services Division, said the change would only cause confusion.

“I’m sorry to say that I think this plan is terrible and it will have to be changed,” he wrote in an email quoted in the court filing. “I believe we are going to be misleading customers with the Capable program. OEMs [PC makers] will say a machine is Capable and customers will believe that it will run all the core Vista features. The fact that aero won’t be there EVER for many of these machines is misleading to customers.”

He wasn’t alone in expressing dissatisfaction. While some OEMs welcomed the change, notably Sony, HP said that it would be left without a competitive low-end product in the “newly expanded Vista Capable universe” because it had made “extra investments at additional cost” to change its products in order to comply with the original Vista Capable criteria.

Kelly concludes that as a result of the changes, the Vista Capable logo was applied to PCs incapable of running Vista.

“Microsoft lent the Vista name and ‘Vista Capable’ designation to PCs that were not capable of supporting what Microsoft had called a ‘core requirement’, ‘fundamental to user experience, stability, quality, performance, the ‘biggest change over XP’, its ‘customer commitments of stability and reliability’,” she wrote.

In a statement, Microsoft said that the emails cited in the filing were a normal discussion about the decision that it made on Vista Capable labelling.

“Ultimately, we provided choices to consumers, giving different options for Windows Vista Capable PCs at various price-points to meet their needs. We implemented a comprehensive education campaign through retailers, manufacturers, the press and our own Website, all designed to explain the program. The campaign gave consumers the information they needed to choose the PC that would run the version of Windows Vista that best fit their lifestyle.”

Author: Simon Aughton