Microsoft executives, who are struggling to revive their floundering Windows OS mobile phone offering, are rubbing their hands with glee at the problems emerging with Apple’s iPhone 4.
Last night Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer, took aim squarely at the iPhone 4’s problems claiming: “One of the things that I want to make sure that you know today is that you’re going to be able to use the Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you’re holding it to make a phone call,” he told Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, adding: “It looks like iPhone 4 might be their Vista.”
What’s amazing about Microsoft executives, who appear to hate criticism, is how quick they change their opinion.
Back in 2007, Turner bragged at a Microsoft Small Business Summit when demonstrating the company’s new Vista Operating System. He said at the time: “When you see these products and the innovation in these products, I think you’ll be as excited as I am.” At the time he was demonstrating Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System.
By April 2009, ahead of the launch of Windows 7 he said, according to the Guardian newspaper: “The tough launch that we had with the release of Vista was very brutal. The first 18 to 24 months in the market was tough. Why was it tough? Because we locked that product down to fix a lot of the security problems.”
Turner went on to say, according to the Guardian: “The reason that Windows 7 will be successful is because of the pain we took on Vista. So on that score, will Apple’s soon-to-be-available iOS4.1 software update be its Windows 7, the number one product [they’ve] ever put out from a quality standpoint”?
