Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> No - I got the impression they deliberately made the software 
> inefficient so that people would mistake this for "powerful".

They honestly didn't, although it appears that way to many people.

Since the majority of Windows licenses come from new computer purchases, 
MS targets computers that will be mainstream in 6-12 months time for 
optimization.  They optimize until those machines run their software 
well, and then stop optimizing (focusing on other things, like adding 
features, hunting bugs, or working on other software).

While it's true that the software *could* be made to run just as well on 
older hardware, MS just doesn't put the effort into making it work 
because they won't ever see enough of a return on it to justify the 
developer time.

This strategy nearly killed Windows Mobile, too.  MS was targeting 
phones they expected to be released, but all of a sudden people realized 
that their phones were now "good enough" and manufacturers stopped 
upgrading the hardware at the same rate.  Suddenly, MS was left with a 
mobile OS that expected more powerful hardware than it had available, 
and so every Windows phone out was complete crap for a while (you could 
argue that they're still complete crap, but that's for other reasons).

-- 
Chambers

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