The Lyrics
TOMMY TURTLE:
Dumb software engineering; no one would buy
No sense of humor: geeks? At least, can't you try?
Why,
Microsoft is suing m because I dissed on Vista
If my little parody is really what has pi**ed ya
How about you suck on this: Last night, I shtupped yer sista!
ALL AMIRIGHT:
Whassa matter, Billy G? Can't take a joke there, Mista?
Sent some subpoenas saying soon they will sue
Hey, bite my poenas, aholes; to-wit: eff you!
MICROSOFT NERD:
Our Vista: newest masterpiece
And was supposed to be,
With "Aero™" look and other crap, [1]
Replacement for XP™
The schedule called orig'nally:
Release: 2003
NERD, BILL GATES, AND MS CHORUS:
Poor Longhorn™ was prolonged so long [2]
Because such klutzes: we!
See?!
Microsoft will sue TT for giving us a blista
What if we can't tell a microchip from a transista?
It's not fair to give our product such an ugly twist, huh?
Send our lawyer after him, to wave, in face, his fist! Hah!
Sales aren't going quite as we'd have preferred
Big advertisting bucks, but buck "mouth of word" [3]
TOMMY TURTLE:
Denied that they were really cooked
But finally admit
Releasing Windows 7™ now [4]
And Vista, they will quit
NERD:
We simply didn't rea-
-lize, how many bugs, 'twas bit
It isn't fun; must be undone:
This worthless piece of s**t!
NERD, TOMMY TURTLE, AND CHORUS:
Twits!
Apple's™ gaining market share; the savvy folks, amidst-a
Linux™ loved by lots of geeks, it's high up on their list-a
How much longer, Microsoft, on this path will persist, huh?
Lots of users told them that "My backside can be kissed-a!"
Why can't their software geeks write func-tional code?
So many customers have told them it blowed
TOMMY TURTLE:
You know, they code all bass-ackwards
Folders: cet'raandetdriverstwoandthirty-systemswodniW [5]
These wacks seem awfully bizzarre,
Don't you think?
Indubitably!
Impairs the user's puter use
Its resources, it eats
Won't fit! [6]
Can't use all of its faculties;
Class action lawsuit, greets
Came out with basic versions, two
For those less than elites [7]
Um, your opinion?
Yes?
THE BILLY:
While we thought 'twas a good idea
We now admit defeats!
Oh, and a effed-up thing it is, too!
ALL:
Though...
Microsoft's disputing Tommy Turtle's rights exist-a
He won't back down easily; continues to resist-a
Free speech: Constitutions's Bill Of Rights, One, does insist-a
Sneers and sneezes; snot, he squeezes, on this slap of wrist-a!
There's a lot more to it, folks, but now you know the gist-a!
[1] "Aero" look: Some sort of Alice-through-the-looking-glass, semi-3-D look that ate up a huge amont of computer resources (memory and processor time), for ... uh, why? I can read my own, plain, "Windows Classic"™ screen just fine, thank you. (Got rid of even the soft, fuzzy "XP theme". Soo much eaiser to read the old 98™ style. Right-click any empty area of your Desktop; click Properties; click Themes; click the drop-down menu and click "Windows Classic". "OK")
[2] Vista's code name during development was "Longhorn"
[3] In its first year of availability, PC World rated it as the biggest tech disappointment of 2007, and it was rated by InfoWorld as #2 of Tech's all-time 25 flops. As of August 2009, combined surveys indicate that of all desktop computers, XP had a little over 69 percent, and Vista, less than 23 percent, market share.
A study conducted by ChangeWave in March 2008 showed that the percentage of corporate users who were "very satisfied" with Vista was dramatically lower than other operating systems, with Vista at 8%, compared to the 40% who said they were "very satisfied" with Windows XP.
Due to Vista's relatively low adoption rates and continued demand for Windows XP, Microsoft continued to sell Windows XP until June 30, 2008 instead of the previously planned end date of January 31, 2008. Actually, as this is written, you can still buy a computer with XP; it will come with Vista, but with "downgrade rights" (as MS calls them), or "upgrade rights" (as TT calls them), and a set of XP disks. TT bought one last year, took it out of the box, plugged it in, and popped in the XP disks immediately. Therefore, MS's sales figures for Vista are actually significantly overstated, as they count those that include the XP downgrade, even though many others besides TT have done the same thing.
You can still get one with just XP installed, although you may have to go to your local puter shop and have them custom-build it. There's a "small-system-builder" exception that allows said to sell XP as part of a custom, or small manufacturing, operation. One Australian sales rep for HP™ said that about 30% of his customers paid for a dual-licensed (Vista and XP) machine just so that they could get XP. Of course, MS counts those as Vista sales.... Great full-color pie chart comparing all operating-system usage at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems
[4] Vista's replacement, Windows 7, was released to computer manufacturers on July 22, 2009, and will be released for general retail sale on October 22, 2009, less than three years after Vista's release. Vista wasn't released for more than five years after XP's release, the longest interval between OS releases for MS *ever*. (See song mention of the planned date of 2003 versus the actual Vista release date of Jan. 2007.) XP's present availability, eight years after its release in 2001, makes it by far the longest-available MS OS in their history, and really says it all about Vista.
Figures released by Amazon.co.uk in the UK show that sales of Windows 7 in the first eight *hours* of its availability surpassed the demand for Windows Vista in its first 17 weeks.
[5] Windows\system32\drivers\etc. Don't open any of those unless you know what you're doing, 'k?
[6] While Microsoft claimed "nearly all PCs on the market today (2005) will run Windows Vista", the higher requirements of some of the "premium" features, such as the "Aero" interface, have had an impact on many upgraders. According to the UK newspaper The Times in May 2006, the full set of features "would be available to less than 5 percent of Britain’s PC market"; however, this prediction was made several months before Vista was released. This continuing lack of clarity eventually led to a class action lawsuit against Microsoft as people found themselves with new computers that were unable to use the new software to its full potential despite the assurance of "Vista Capable" designations.
The court case has made public internal Microsoft communications that indicate that senior executives have also had difficulty with this issue. For example, his laptop's lack of an appropriate graphics chip so hobbled Vista features that MS vice president Mike Nash (Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management) commented "I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."
[7] Added Windows Vista Home Basic™ for budget users. Still too expensive and requiring too much computing power for third-world and emerging-market users, so they threw the sop of Windows Vista Starter™ (You can't buy it, unless you live in one of those countries, or buy it from there.) Um, excuse me, but couldn't you just keep selling those folks XP, and still make money on a product you've already developed and tuned for eight years?