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Hello,

What do you guys think about the Mojave Experiment by Microsoft? Is it good marketing, or just misleading propaganda presented as and actual experiment in an attempt improve Vista's failing image?

More importantly, do you think that advertising such as this would be good for the desktop Linux? Would the social-proofing concept be able to reach any critical mass? Was this the point of Lindependence Day, and if so, was it a success?

Gamer Nix wrote:Hello,

What do you guys think about the Mojave Experiment by Microsoft? Is it good marketing, or just misleading propaganda presented as and actual experiment in an attempt improve Vista's failing image?

More importantly, do you think that advertising such as this would be good for the desktop Linux? Would the social-proofing concept be able to reach any critical mass? Was this the point of Lindependence Day, and if so, was it a success?

Vista was a failure because it's dark and looks like OSX with the lights turned off. And then under all the fluff it's still windows and windows sucks and fails all the time. So, the Mojave Experiment, I would say, is absolutely an attempt to improve Vista's failing image.

EDIT: I didn't actualy see what the people in the experiement were shown though...maybe it was Call of Duty 4. In that case, I would say that Vista is super. But I don't use Vista, or windows...but I like COD4.

I think the Mojave experiment results are similar to what is called the "General Electric Effect" In business psychology. The testers were so happy to get attention for issues with MSVista that the test might have colored their results. A clean setup of a slower os can look better than a faster os if it is screwed up and not working properly. I have talked to a lot of knowledgeable Microsoft techies who would prefer to run win2k8 server as a desktop instead of vista or xp. Thee are too many if's. Besides Microsoft has allegedly twisted the truth in so much of their marketing. Reminds of the old joke where Russia and the USA had a sports competition for just the two of them. The USA won. The Russian newspaper reported that the USA came in next to last place and that Russia came in second, but forgetting to mention there were only two teams competing. Technically correct, but deceptively denigrating towards the USA.

I would suspect that using this experiment on any os would produce the same results. Taking a know os with flaws and bugs and stuff and setting it up on a system, tweaking it to perfection and then having people site down in front of it and give their opinion is not a realistic experiment. I would suspect the same results should you tweak out a linux system to perfection and put users in front of it.

What do these results really tell us? That they were able to present Vista for a brief period to do specific tasks allowed in a sandbox environment to a group of un-informed participants. This does nothing to counter the claims of people who have used Vista in the "wild." But, the majority of the population out there is not smart enough to see beyond the study group and with the help of the tech media will generalize this to mean that all the previous complaints and their own experiences are unfounded and Vista is an elegant choice.

But then again, perhaps it's too late even for this spin.

So I read the story about this a week ago, but today I finally went over to http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/ and watched the thing. Whereas Apple expects it's users to self-identify with smug ( and think it's a good trait), I guess Microsoft expects it's users to self-identify as idiots (and think that's a good thing). Otherwise, how could the idea for this marketing campaign not have been designed from the outset to insult their own users intelligence?

I must have missed something in the original article I had read about the project. I did not realize that they were "shown" as opposed to given the opportunity to "use" Vista. That there is a huge difference. Being shown a pre-defined script of what something can do is light years away from actually being given the opportunity to do it on your own or explore.

If they really wanted some decent results they should have given the participants the ability to use the systems for a period of time. Maybe a week at home. But then again, perhaps they would have not received the results they wanted.

Also note, in studies like this, they have to find a way to overcome the participants "need" to want to give the right answer and please the administrator of the study. Having a camera in your face and being asked by a person perceived as having some personal connectivity to the product in question tends to produced skewed results. It takes a pretty confident person to breech any disagreement or criticize a product that is largely mis-understood by most people, confusing at best and has a person associated with the company right there with them. No one wants to appear stupid. And given the opportunity, most people would just follow the herd, because that is the least stressful action.