The Mojave Experiment has been the center of the latest round of controversy surrounding Microsoft and its flagship operating system Windows Vista. Initially I thought Mojave was a brilliant marketing ploy and it would work wonders to clear the bad air on Windows Vista..

Well it is not really the best marketing ploy ever! If I were to choose my words, I’d call it the lamest marketing exercise of the year. The Mojave Experiment means Microsoft has stooped to an all time low, trying to do every single thing it can to clear the air about Vista. But trust me Microsoft its not as easy creating a beautiful new OS codenamed Mojave only to reveal that its nothing but Windows Vista.

Here’s how Microsoft describes the Mojave Experiment :

What do people think of Windows Vista® when they don’t know it’s Windows Vista? We disguised Windows Vista as codename "Mojave," the "next Microsoft OS," so regular people who’ve never used Windows Vista could see what it can do – and decide for themselves. Now decide for yourself.

Oh well, here are my top 5 reasons why the Mojave Experiment is Epic fail…

• Microsoft treats its customers as though they are stupid

  One of the chief reasons, why many people dislike Windows, is plainly because of the number of steps it takes to do a simple thing. Microsoft makes sure that the user has to go through an endless sequence of steps to get a simple job done. It’s always click, click, click, click, click, click, click, where one or two clicks should suffice.

  Microsoft treats its customers as though they are kids. They feel that the user should be shown around the system, and be told what’s right and what’s not.. These way of holding users hands just like a parent holding a child’s hands is not the way Microsoft should be working.

  It should instead focus on giving the power back to the user, in his own hands. Let him do as he pleases, after all its his PC. What MS feels is that by giving the power in users hands, it is going to make Windows more vulnerable. But in real life that isn’t the case, take for example Linux where the user is supreme and the number of attacks just pale in comparison to those on Windows.

  Come on Microsoft its high time you gave your users some respect, and treated them as smart humans!

• Microsoft tries to seduce its customers

  Microsoft’s initial campaign on Vista, was all about the new interface and the WOW! features. Somehow the we never heard people saying Wow while looking at Vista. Now Microsoft was downright frustrated and it wanted those Wow’s somehow, and that’s why Mojave began in first place.

  Here’s what MS told the participants of the Mojave experiment, “Hey! Listen, I’m going to show you a peek into the latest operating system from Microsoft. You’re really lucky and special, and I hope you like it”.

  Now when a tester hears that he’s all excited, and when he sees the demo later only to find that it was Vista he’s embarrassed. Of course he’s going to like it!There’s no one way he’s going to tell he didn’t like Mojave or Vista or whatever its called.

  Now this is something that’s human nature. When we are shown something that’s top secret we’re almost always going to like it, and that’s what Microsoft’s been targeting. I believe they have a good psychologist on the Mojave team.

• Microsoft completely controls the test environment

  The chief complaint of millions of users when Vista came out was it didn’t work well with their existing hardware. It ran terribly slow and many of there hardware didn’t work properly.

  Now with Mojave, Microsoft set up the hardware. Microsoft brought the accessories. Microsoft picked the software. Microsoft sat people down with Vista experts driving the mouse, and walked people through Vista.

  In such an environment, people liked Vista. What Microsoft fails to understand is that these guys want to be able to run Vista smoothly on their computers back home, and not have to run to the nearest computer store to buy a computer that can run Vista smoothly even though their existing computer is less than a year old.

  Windows users have always wanted to set up their own hardware, and they would expect Vista to work properly with the hardware they have, and not use the hardware that Vista is comfortable with.

• Mojave Experiment blames the customers for all the problems, rather than Vista

  What do you think is the problem? Why is it that thousands of people are downgrading from Vista to XP? Why is that many OEM manufacturers are still selling PC’s with both XP and Vista?

  What Microsoft feels is that all the negative perception behind Vista are because of the bloggers, forum posters, reviewers and hell even the Apple’s marketing campaign. Microsoft’s attitude has been more like, we’ve solved many problems with SP1, and we’ll solve many more with SP2. Until then just hang on tight alright!

  The first step in fixing a problem is admitting that you have one and this is something which Microsoft fails to do. The only way I read this experiment is that Microsoft considers Vista’s failure to be due to customer ignorance rather than failings of the product itself.

  Way to go Microsoft!!

• Mojave is Microsoft’s Arrogance at its best

  Microsoft’s attitude with Mojave is something on these lines, “We’re smart. You’re stupid”. Microsoft’s methods of choosing testers, specifically on the basis that they had strong negative attitudes about Vista isn’t right.

  What Microsoft feels is that by tricking people and making them feel that Vista is way better than they thought its just another way to reinforce its new corporate mantra “Customers are Stupid!”

  The problems that Vista has become famous for are not the kinds of problems you encounter in a few minutes of playing with it in a controlled environment that Microsoft setup with Mojave.

If Mojave is what Microsoft spends $300 Million to promote Vista, then am afraid that the bad is only going to get worser. What are your thoughts on the Mojave Experiment?

Atleast for me Mojave is Epic Fail!

Firefox 3 is all set to reach new territories, and on the way to its glory it aims to create a world record for the most number of software downloads in a single day. Mozilla is surely on its way to create the record and its asking everyone including me and you to pledge to download Firefox 3 when its available for public download..

Well the dates for the release haven’t been announced as yet but looking at the recent Release Candidate builds Firefox looks like a solid improvement over Firefox 2. I’d say go ahead and make a pledge to help Firefox create this new world record…

To help Mozilla set the world record, they recommend the following:

• Sign up to get the final copy of Firefox 3 on Download Day.
• Host a Download Day Fest on Firefox 3 launch day at your school, office, or anywhere with an Internet connection.
• Become a Firefox campus representative and collect pledges from fellow students.
• Add Mozilla buttons and banners to your site, blog, or profile.

Nearly 120,000 people have already pledged, but I can imagine this number will grow significantly in the following days. You can even see how many people have pledged from each individual country on a nifty world map, as pictured below. As of now the United States is in the lead but I’d like to see my home country India be a bigger part of this initiative.

So what are you waiting for? lets get moving and stab IE in the face. Come on people, Firefox rocks doesn’t it?

Put in your pledge right now!!

Mozilla has come up with yet another initiative to take Firefox to the masses. The latest campaign coming from Mozilla is titled as "Operation Firefox" an initiative that takes to marketing Firefox in the traditional way by putting up large sized banners in public places.

In brief: The goal is to post fifty 3½-feet (~1 meter) wide Firefox logo stickers in some very visible areas around the world. Participants must be residents of the US, Canada, Japan, China and New Zealand though.

Well here are some more details about the contest and yes you can win some cool prizes like a MacBook Pro and Nintendo Wii’s too..

• Interested teams have to submit a proposal on what they intend to do by November 9.
• 50 teams will be selected based on proposal completeness, execution logistics, sticker exposure, and originality. Selected teams will receive the giant sticker for free.
• The selected teams will place the sticker and document the process. The documentation will then be submitted to Mozilla.
• First prize is a Mac Book Pro and one of three Nintendo Wiis for the runners up.

So if you are a creative artist and you love Firefox then get cracking and whip out the best Firefox banner we’ve ever seen. In the mean time check the official Operation Firefox homepage for more details.

Via Mozilla Links

The first Ad focuses on the Security, while the second one on the extensibility of Firefox. In the First ad a couple of thieves try to steal a credit card number, and they get stumped by the Mighty Firefox. Well here is the first ad I am talking about :

I am sure that you got stumped by the first ad. Well here is the second one, which has a powerful message on the extensibility of Firefox.