"Blog Posts Poke Holes in ‘Taste Test’ by Microsoft"

In a New York Times article entitled, "Blog Posts Poke Holes in 'Taste Test' by Microsoft", the author discusses a test by Microsoft where consumers who hadn't upgraded to Windows Vista were shown the Vista operating system under a new name and given the chance to test it. When it was revealed that the operating system was actually Vista, people suddenly fell in love with it based on ten minutes of usage. 

Many have already criticized this test. I find it reminiscent of the "New Coke" that was a miserable failure. Coca-Cola tried to reformulate their Coke recipe to beat Pepsi in blind taste tests, but the new recipe was rejected by consumers because it wasn't as appealing to drink more than a few sips of. This Vista test acts in a similar way- consumers will like the eye-candy of the operating system when they have no pre-existing prejudices against it, but once they have to live with it and find their own drivers and the like, then they will become dissatisfied with the operating system.