Microsoft does embarrassing double-backflip

Send to a friend Print

Help more people find out about this story

Del.icio.us
StumbleUpon

Dan Warne20 June 2007, 3:47 AM

Microsoft has backflipped on its policy of banning users from running Vista under virtual machines like VMware... and then double-backflipped back to its original stance.
Microsoft has made an embarrassing double-backflip on its policy of banning users of home versions of Vista from running it in virtual machines like Parallels or VMWare.

When Vista was released, users were surprised to discover that if they wanted to run Vista under virtualisation, they'd have to buy the costly ultimate version (or the business version which omits home features such as Media Center.)

Mary Jo Foley of ZDnet US reported today that Microsoft officials were preparing to announce a change of heart on 20th June -- and had even gone as far as pre-briefing journalists on the change.

"We received ongoing feedback from virtualization enthusiasts, press, partners and analysts recognizing the security issues but asking Microsoft to reconsider moving toward more customer choice," the company had told Foley in a statement it had issued under non-disclosure agreement.

Late last night, though -- just before the June 20 deadline rolled around -- the company changed its mind, sending a curt corrective statement to Foley: "Microsoft has reassessed the Windows virtualization policy and decided that we will maintain the original policy."

Read her full story here.


Post your comment



Comments

 RSS feed Email alert

Anonymous1:

Thanks Dan ... so what was the news here?

29 February 2008, 8:31 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan Warne:

that Microsoft had decided it would let ordinary users run Vista under virtualisation (important especially for Linux and Mac users), had announced this change to journalists and put a date on it, and then at the last minute someone in the business side of things told the PRs that they'd changed their mind. 

No way to unspin it to journalists and the public when you've already spun it in a different direction... PR's worst nightmare, as they're unable to do anything at all.



29 February 2008, 8:44 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Zed:

Read the headline. Sheesh, does it have to be so hard.

29 February 2008, 8:44 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Steven Noble:

Hi Dan, Of course I subscribe to all of APC's RSS feeds and scour the hard copy every month, but the only reason I came across this very interesting story was because I saw it listed on Media Connect's daily email service. What are your thoughts on the value of adding an RSS feed to every page of the APC website?

29 February 2008, 8:31 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan Warne:

Hi Stephen -- it's odd that you didn't get the story as part of the main site feed. It came up in my RSS reader (Google Reader). The different sections of the site do actually have separate RSS feeds -- you should just be able to click your browsers' RSS icon in each part of the site to get the RSS feed. 

We've also listed some of the most popular feeds here:

http://apcmag.com/node/2784 



29 February 2008, 8:44 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Steven Noble:

Previously I was subscribed to:

http://www.apcstart.com/site/feed/atom/

After reading your comment, I'm now subscribed to:

http://apcmag.com/rss.xml

Was that the issue?

Should I now unsubscribe from the former feed?

29 February 2008, 8:31 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan Warne:

Hi Stephen -- yes, unfortunately apcstart.com/site/feed/atom was the URL for our old content management system. When we cut over to the new one the RSS feed address changed.

So, yep, you should unsubscribe to the other feed. 



29 February 2008, 8:44 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

algr:

People use virtualization to MINIMIZE their use of windows. Typically, someone wants to use a Mac, but has _one_ application that won't run on it. So why make those people pay the MAXIMUM price? It's just to make life difficult for people who try to use the competition. Typical Microsoft.



29 February 2008, 8:31 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Brian Croner:

Microsoft has to be "straight with the public" customers after a certain recent event that seems to be so vigorously underreported in America. It seems that America has more secrets than all the other countries in the world, from what I gather. Microsoft's moves are more and more widely read into under a new light.

So why did the twin wtc towers fall? So where did MS get all that nice source code? How bad do secrets get? Where's the bar? What's the hierarchy?

29 February 2008, 8:31 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Not signed in
anonymous user Anonymous user


Tags