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September 04, 2009

There's a Party In My Computer, and Everyone's Invited

Question of the day: What are these people doing?

Reading a wine review site? Watching Masterpiece Theatre videos on YouTube? Reviewing county-by-county results from the 1956 presidential election?

No, it turns out they are enjoying the star attraction of a Windows 7 Launch Party. These events are an opportunity for Microsoft employees to spread the word about Windows 7. I gather the idea is that you invite your friends over and give them a demo--like a party for Tupperware or Stampin' Up, except it's an operating system.

At first I thought this was ridiculous, and I've seen it generate some eye rolls at work, but I actually like it. I mean, why not? I've been using Windows 7 at work and it really *is* pretty slick. Getting to be an early adopter of cool technology is a perk of being an employee. In fact somebody in my group signed up to host (there's a selection process to determine who is actually allowed to host) and it would be interesting to attend. I don't know if I will get quite as excited as the woman in the middle of the picture above, who appears to be suffering heart palpitations at the sight of the new taskbar, but there is enough eye candy in the product to rival anything that Pampered Chef could produce.

Here's a fact: Windows XP came out in October 2001. Going with the generally-accepted consensus on the quality of Vista, and ignoring the (correct) claims that Windows XP SP2 really was a new release of the OS, that means that Microsoft hasn't release an [insert adjective here] operating system since my son was born--the one who just started second grade. No wonder he wrote an essay on our new Mac, which recently replaced a flaky PC, that began, "One time there was a kid who loved the computer, his name was Noah." Hopefully with Windows 7 we can start winning back those hard-to-please seven-year-olds.

Posted by AdamBa at September 4, 2009 09:40 PM

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