I usually ignore spam. Especially spam from computer retailers like CompUSA. However, last week I received an advertisement from CompUSA that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Windows Vista sucks.

It is, what, more than 6 months from Vista's consumer release and a year (sorry, I don't follow Windows product announcements since 2001) since the corporate release? Anyway, this operating system has been publicly available for quite some time. In short, it's way past the Now from whence the Wow commenced.

With that background, CompUSA's leading promotion in last week's ad is very telling:

Hmmm... a marketing campaign to let people know CompUSA has an OS from 2001 available NOW! Is that really the most exciting thing available in the once-venerated PC world? No wonder Dell is trying to create a buzz around Ubuntu.

Also, no wonder Microsoft is stretching credulity with bending the GPL to its own ends with its patent deals with Novell (distributor of SuSE and Mono), Linspire and Xandros. Microsoft is out of ideas and the public knows it.