Microsoft’s Tricky “Mojave OS” Video Goes Live

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

As I indicated earlier, Microsoft put up a teaser website for Mojave, their new OS - which doesn’t exist. The idea was to do a blind “taste test” for users who had negative views of Windows Vista (and listening to the video, they sure did), tricking them into using Vista, to see how they reacted. In general, the reaction was positive, according to Microsoft. On Tuesday, the video portion of that website went live.

When you initially load the page, it plays one particular video clip (the leftmost “Overview” clip as shown above) automatically. But you can click on any user’s image and see what that particular user had to say once the “gimmick” was revealed.

Some of the blurbs from the “Overview” clip:

So why haven’t you upgraded to Vista yet?

• Just the bad things I’ve heard about it.
• It’s horrible; we have so many problems.
• It crashes.
• I’ve heard nothing but bad things about Vista, really.
• I wouldn’t touch the thing.
• I just heard negative things; I never tried it myself.

Well, I have to confess to you, this is Vista..

• Really?
• Blew my mind.
• Are you serious?
• Son of a gun. You got me.
• It’s totally different that I heard it would be like.
• It represents a lot of things that you could only dream of a few years back.
• I’m getting it.
• I’m impressed.

There was at least one person in the myriad of videos that remained skeptical, but all the others I listened to were impressed.

Interesting stats from the site: of 140 participants, over 90% gave Vista a higher rating after seeing the Mojave demo than prior to it, with none reducing their score. The average pre-Mojave rating for Vista was 4.4, with the average rating after seeing Mojave was 8.5.

However, the experience of a brief demo is certainly not the same as having to deal with UAC, Welcome Screens, finding drivers, etc., etc. Personally, I’ve often said that while Vista is certainly more evolutionary than revolutionary, it’s a decent OS, and has some nice features (UAC not being one of them).

It has, however, because of initial incompatibilities, difficulty finding drivers, etc. etc., been a convenient punching bag. As you may know, Forrest Research has compared Windows Vista to “New Coke,” saying that many corporations may be skipping the OS to wait for Windows 7, which launches in 2010.

Whoever came up with the idea for this trickery ought to win a prize, though, as it’s pretty clever, and might actually make a difference. So when’s this going to hit TV, Microsoft?