malanciault.com

Recently, I upgraded the family computer from Windows Vista to Windows 7. How I could go nearly 2 years without throwing that computer out the window is a complete mystery to me. The computer is a nice HP dual core with 2 Gb or RAM. And while Vista was on it, with no applications running, CPU usage was always at least 60% and so was the memory used. Opening any applications would take a minute or so. Really, I was that close to actually rip my arm off and beat this computer to death with it.

But in the last weeks, I got to play with Windows 7 on my wife’s laptop and I was very surprised to find out it was actually not that bad! So I decided to give our family computer a very last chance and ordered a Windows 7 upgrade. I installed it. All went fine and when I restarted, I opened Firefox and iTune. Then I looked at the Task Manager. CPU was at 2% and memory at 40%. Wow!

But what amazed me the most was the little booklet that came with the package. The title reads: Welcome to you PC, simplified”. Interesting. Then, inside, one can read:

Thank you for choosing Windows 7. We listened closely to what you wanted — a simpler PC with less waiting, less clicks, less hassles connecting, and less complexity.

With less of what you don’t need, that means your PC with Windows 7 can help you do more of what you want…

But wait a minute! This sounds really familiar…

• Build less
• Less is better
• Less mass
• Less software
• You can always do less

So my question: Did Microsoft recently subscribed to 37signals’s blog Signal vs. Noise ? It’s very interesting to see those concepts applied by one of the biggest company of all time, which culture’s always was the opposite of doing less. Microsoft always was about getting more features in. More! More! MORE!

So, maybe the culture is starting to change ? And it’s probably not 100% correlated, but I do find Windows 7 their best OS so far…