Microsoft have taken a lot of stick lately, especially for the disaster that was Vista. However as well as their terrible products they make some cool stuff too.

The problem is they don’t seem to know which is which. Software wise, there is the disaster that is (soon to be was) Vista. Windows 7, according to early reports anyway seems to be a lot better. Windows Vista had a lot of cool visual features, Aero did look good. It seems however it was all style and no substance.

Microsoft makes other software, of course. Photosynth is a really cool application. A good example of it in use is the moment by cnn. It’s a really nice view of Barack Obama’s inauguration.

One of their latest announcements was the MSN Mobile Music service. It has DRM (Digital Rights Management)! This is unbelievable. When every other company (Apple, Amazon ) is removing DRM from their music Microsoft are adding DRM to theirs. Who made that decision? Oh wait…

Microsoft also create hardware, like the excellent xBox 360. Apart from the red ring of death issue, it is an excellent games machine. The xBox live is also an excellent service.

Moving back to software, SongSmith produced more laughs than anything else this week.

Speaking of ads, what was the idea behind the Jerry Seinfeld ads?

Didn’t get them. Probably just me.

There are good designers at Microsoft, just look at their line of t-shirts, I like them. They also have good developers, they wouldn’t be where they are today without them. They just need to get the two working together.

Maybe it’s just bad choices coming from the top…