Ballmer: Microsoft never recovered from Vista blow

As Microsoft prepares for the release of Windows 7, CEO Steve Ballmer admits that the company's reputation has never recovered from the launch of Vista.

This from the Telegraph:

Mr Ballmer said: "We got some uneven reception when [Vista] first launched in large part because we made some design decisions to improve security at the expense of compatibility. I don't think from a word-of-mouth perspective we ever recovered from that."

There you have it. Confirmation of what most of us knew already ... that the Vista name was mud.

Turning bad news into good though, Ballmer now believes that there's "pent up demand" for new gear:

"I'd be hopeful that we see a bit more rapid pick-up - particularly people who are upgrading the software without touching the hardware - than maybe we have in years past."

This is the rub. The people that Windows 7 really needs to appeal to are those millions of entrenched XP users who don't see a reason to switch OSes. These people are going to be much harder to convince to switch than people who've already made the switch to Vista.