It looks like all my negative pre-reviews of Vista were pretty accurate; sales of Vista are sluggish, selling only half as much as XP did. Steve “Monkey Boy” Ballmer is actually trying to blame pirates in developing nations for the slow sales. However, most other people have other theories as to why sales are slow.

The biggest reason going around is the “so what?” factor. It’s hard to get excited by the new-features list, which is pretty short. The increased security is no big deal; if you have an anti-virus app on XP, it’s not worse than security on Vista–and might even be better, as Vista security is still untested, still settling in, and besides which it annoys the hell out of you with nagging messages (which many turn off, thus disabling security features that may not be covered otherwise). The faster search is nice, but if you used XP for five years, you probably learned to live without search, a necessary avoidance strategy–and so you probably won’t have the urge to do much searching. The Sidebar can be done in XP using free third-party software. And unless you like shiny new eye candy a hell of a lot, there’s really not that much else to make you want to buy it.

But then there’s the price. Assuming even that you do have a machine that’s Vista-ready and don’t have to buy more RAM, a new graphics card, or a whole new machine… you still have to shell out for Vista. Wait, what’s that? You only have to pay $100 for the upgrade? True, few people need to pay the full price… but $100 gets you the “Home Basic” version, which is essentially a crippled version of the OS. Unlike the Mac OS, which has only one flavor and the price is $130 for the full set of features ($200 for a 5-pack), Vista has a wide array of versions–which really means that to get the full set of features like in Mac OS X, you need to get the $400 package ($260 upgrade).

I discovered this by going to Yodobashi Camera to check out Vista running on one of their machines. I wanted to see the eye candy in action, so I tried to get the 3-D window flip, Vista’s version of the Mac Exposé feature. But try as I might, I couldn’t get it to work. After hunting down a salesperson, I was told that I was working with Windows Vista Home Basic–which didn’t have that much-ballyhooed feature. This truly surprised me–as a Mac user, I’m used to getting everything in the basic package. I mean, I knew that the different versions meant different functionality, but I simply didn’t get what that meant–that lesser versions were essentially partially-crippled versions.

What’s worse, many Windows users buying a machine will not be aware of this–and so will get their nice, cheap new Windows Vista PC… only to find many of the features they anticipated disabled… and the only way to get them is to pay for a whole new upgrade to a system they already own.

And then there’s the Mac side of things. People who want to run Vista using Parallels are in for a shock. Not only will first-timers have to pay the full price (no upgrade from OS X!), but Microsoft is forcing Parallel users to buy the $300 Business or $400 Ultimate editions–neither “Home” version will work in virtualization. While Microsoft cites “security” concerns, it’s pretty obvious that they’re just trying to shake down customers.

I’d like to say that Vista’s aggressive DRM is slowing sales, but I’m sure that’s not true; most people probably don’t use the advanced video features that would get you into DRM territory. But just wait. To be certain, DRM is not a positive feature egging on sales.

And then there’s compatibility–Vista still won’t work with a lot of the old software and hardware out there, and even if it does, it all too often requires quite a bit of effort to get things working. True, this will get ironed out over time, but it’s hurting Vista’s image and not helping with initial sales.

As time goes on, you see more and more stories like this one, where the US Department of Transportation is actually forbidding its people from upgrading to Vista or Office 2007. Why? Because “There appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade.” So no upgrades–that means you, Paul! Meanwhile, Linux and Mac are being looked at.

I have seen this effect first-hand as well. Only a few of my students have upgraded to Vista and Office 2007, and from their reactions, I don’t expect too many more of my students to do so soon. I asked one student who upgraded what she thought–and the poor young woman actually winced. And no, I am not kidding, nor am I exaggerating.

In the end, it looks like the only way Vista will win widespread acceptance is by Hobson’s Choice–you buy a new Windows machine, you get Vista, like it or not. Though I expect that the creative retailer who offers new machines with XP will find a profitable niche market.