Windows Vista 'less good,' Microsoft exec admits

With Windows 7's launch looming, a company executive yesterday denigrated its predecessor, calling Vista a "less good product."

The comment won't surprise many analysts and users, who have condemned the 2007 operating system as bloated, slow and balky, but it's the furthest any high-level Microsoft executive has gone in criticizing Vista.

"What people underestimate is the importance of good or bad products," said Charles Songhurst, Microsoft's general manager of corporate strategy, at a investor's conference on Tuesday. "And sometimes your products are good, sometimes the products are bad. And I think Vista was a less good product for Microsoft."

Windows 7, on the other hand, is much better than good, Songhurst argued. "Windows 7 is an extremely good product from Microsoft. It's been brilliantly developed, and I think people probably underestimate the effects of the bad products and the good products."

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