“Microsoft has shipped a ‘Vista Industrial Design Toolkit’ to PC manufacturers meant to encourage them to design computers that are more visually appealing. From the article: ‘From color palettes to suggestions about how the power and reset buttons should appear, the kit basically describes Microsoft’s vision of what a Vista PC should look like. The look features accelerated curves and purposeful contrast, among other qualities.’ The report goes on to say that Microsoft wants ‘PCs to be objects of pure desire.’ Sound familiar? It’s hard to see budget-conscious OEMs stepping up to this.”

Windows XP is 4 years old… there have been 3 releases of most opensource OS’s this year alone… will Microsoft ever put functionality over form? probably not.  I think most people will agree with me that I would rather have a computer function properly than “look pretty” or should I say what M$ says “visually appealing”.

[If anyone wonders I’m running Fedora Core 5 which is switched to (the Fedora line) 8 mos ago and haven’t looked back, hell you can run VMWare and have windows on your Linux… it even runs faster! 😉 ]