Steve Ballmer Names Windows Vista as Biggest Regret While CEO

A few days ago we reported that Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer announced that he would be retiring from that position within the next 12 months. Steve took the CEO position in 2001 and in that time he oversaw led many operating system and product releases. He was speaking with ZDNet and mentioned that there was one product launch he did regret the most, Windows Vista.

steve-ballmer

“I would say probably the thing I regret most is the, what shall I call it, the loopedy-loo that we did that was sort of Longhorn to Vista. I would say that’s probably the thing I regret most. And, you know, there are side effects of that when you tie up a big team to do something that doesn’t prove out to be as valuable.”

If you used Windows Vista then you can understand why Ballmer regrets the “loopedy-loo”. Vista was highly criticized for its high system requirements, compatibility with pre-Vista hardware and the User Account Control was just annoying.

Ballmer and Microsoft made up for Windows Vista with Windows 7, which addressed many of these issues. It went on to become one of Microsoft’s most successful operating systems.

Source: ZDNet | News Archive

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