Mary Jo Foley asks today How can Microsoft overcome Vista's lingering image problem? I would be more inclined to ask, however, whether or not it's even worth it for them to try.

Microsoft is in a trap of their own making with Vista right now, and MJ touches on it tangentially, recognizing that "Many users inherently distrust data about Microsoft products that comes from Microsoft, rather than independent reviewers...." Aside from it generally being good practice to look for product reviews coming from people without a financial stake in the matter, it's worth asking why exactly it is that people are so disinclined to trust Microsoft's pronouncements about Vista?

I think it's because they have never changed, although the company's defenders want us to believe that the operating system has. But if you listened to Microsoft's stance on Vista when it was released, you wouldn't notice much difference in how they talk about it now. It was faster, more stable, and more capable than XP then; and hey, after SP1, guess what, it is faster, more stable, and more capable than XP again!

Clearly there is some sort of disconnect here, and you really have to wonder how anyone at Microsoft could possibly fail to realize that their credibility with regard to this operating system is utterly shot. A few mea culpas up front, a mild acknowledgment at release that Vista wasn't the Second Coming, are things which would have left a little room to say, at this point, that things have improved. That's room that just isn't there, however, and though things have improved, it hasn't been by sufficient margin to overcome the distrust by presenting a truly improved system that everyone would have to sit up and take note of.

Which leads me to my conclusion: don't waste any time trying to overcome Vista's image problems. Keep cranking it out, lay on the PR job with a trowel if you must, but on the whole, give it up as a bad inning and devote most of your resources to Windows 7. Bring it out with a little humility, a lot of improvement, and let the market make its own call, instead of trying to dupe your customers with a PR blizzard.