Gates: Vista Is ‘Very Successful’

On his way out the door, Bill Gates is defending Windows Vista, the OS that has failed to woo consumers away from Microsoft's older Windows XP. "I think a lot of people would say it was the best new product of the year,” Gates said in an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer before his speech last night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Gates acknowledged users “have very high expectations in terms of having all the (device) drivers there and the compatibility,” and that “there's some of those areas where, as the year went on, we definitely did a better job on those things.” Still, he called Vista, which has sold 100 million copies, “a very successful product,” adding, “We're very proud of it.” (More Microsoft stories.)