Dear Bill Gates,

I am very sorry I shoveled so much ire on Windows Vista over the last few years, both privately and publically.  I approach with hat in hand and offer an apology.

Recently I decided to buy a new computer.  Because of being such a raving fan of my iPhone, I thought I would switch to a Mac.  Mac computers are very elegant.  Macs are beautiful.

But for me, ultimately, a Mac didn’t make any sense.  Not after I saw, and fell in love with, an HP Quad Core desktop machine with 8 gigs of RAM, and a huge and beautiful 23 inch wide screen monitor … for 2/3 the price of a Mac which, by tech specs alone, was only half the computer.

The only drawback, I thought, was that the HP came preloaded with Windows Vista.  Every experience I’ve had with Vista has been negative.  But, I thought, I’ll just uninstall it, put XP on it, and then upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out.

That’s not what happened, though.  It turns out with a powerful computer, 64-bit Windows Vista rocks.  It rocks hard.  Software I thought had been buggy (Firefox 3, which I had all but given up on) and Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate (don’t try and say that with only one breath) both of them are rock solid on Vista.

On this computer, Vista runs effortlessly, and it multitasks like a supercomputer of yore.

It’s beautiful, elegant, and solid.  The operating system I thought I would hate, I have found I actually love.  Sure, it may suck on a lesser computer.  On hardware that is not worthy.  But on this machine?  Dare I say it?  It’s downright sexy.

And my apologies to Steve Jobs and Apple, and all the Apple fans out there, but this HP desktop kicks ass.  Vista kicks ass.

AND, something that people don’t figure in until it’s too late, I didn’t have to re-purchase all my software for the Mac platform.  That was really the nail in the coffin when I was teetering between choosing a Mac and a PC.  I have a significant investment in software.

So once again, Mr. Gates I am sorry for the loads of ire.  That is in the past.

And take heart Mr. Jobs, you still get a chunk of my money, as I pick up my new iPhone 3Gs tomorrow.

Here’s a lesson I’ve learned, not just in this instance but in many instances, and it holds true.  Brand loyalty is stupid.  It fosters complacency.  It even harms the companies you love, because what drives companies to continuously improve is competition.  If you’ve become a brand-loyal cash cow to your favorite company, you’re undermining the system of competition – and that actually ends up hurting the company you support.

I still like Apple better than I do Microsoft, and certainly more than I like HP (and I used to work for HP), but Mac computers are too expensive and too underpowered.  I don’t care how elegant they are.

Vista is pretty damn elegant if you give it a chance.  And I can’t wait to put Windows 7 on this thing.

But, I’ve decided, only after Windows 7 gets its SP1.