Lawyers: Even Microsoft Confused Over Vista Marketing
According to some recent litigation documents, a Microsoft production manager could not correctly explain the "Vista Capable" marketing slogan, which misled consumers during the pre-release of Vista.
This case, filed in March by Washington State resident Diane Kelley, accused Microsoft of misleading consumers by allowing PC manufacturers to label their products as "Vista Capable," when a "large number" of computers could only run the most basic version of the operating system, Vista Home Basic.
Two weeks later, Kelley's lawyers requested class-action status, which would allow plaintiffs from across the United States to join the lawsuit. Last week, Microsoft submitted its defense to the federal court in Seattle against this proposal.
Microsoft argued that educating the public and providing the Vista Capable program to OEM hardware partners was a time-consuming and labor-intensive process, similar to the efforts made during the 2006 sales push for the Pentium series. The program and excess inventory were used by Microsoft manufacturers to sell XP systems because the release of the Vista versions was delayed until January, after the holiday sales season.
"Since the inception of the Vista Capable program, Microsoft has emphasized that not all Vista Capable PCs are the same," Microsoft wrote in its December 19th filing. Microsoft continually informed the public that Pentium and advanced experiences like Windows Aero would require the support of a "Pentium Ready" label.
A deposition from Kelley's lawyers revealed that a Microsoft manager could not correctly explain what "Capable" meant during the Vista marketing blitz.
"Capable is a statement that can be interpreted as, within the context of the program, a PC can run any edition of the Vista operating system," said Mark Croft, the company's marketing director. "Ready" means that the PC can run enhanced or better ways compared to "Capable," so the term "Capable" was more precise within the context of the program.
Translated by diglog from http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139961-pg,1/article.html