Perhaps I was too unkind in my remarks about HP in a recent posting about Vista and HP's lack of preparedness for it. It isn't like I know how to write printer drivers, after all. And anyway, HP does have a Vista-compatible driver for my multifunction unit ... or it would if I was willing to connect it using a USB cable instead of working through my network.Sadly, I'm not.Anyway, HP isn't in my cross-hairs anymo Perhaps I was too unkind in my remarks about HP in a recent posting about Vista and HP’s lack of preparedness for it. It isn’t like I know how to write printer drivers, after all. And anyway, HP does have a Vista-compatible driver for my multifunction unit … or it would if I was willing to connect it using a USB cable instead of working through my network.Sadly, I’m not.Anyway, HP isn’t in my cross-hairs anymore, largely because Palm is, due to providing a Catch-22 so good I’ve concluded Palm must have hired Joseph Heller for the sole purpose of designing it. The problem? The software for my Treo 700P is only partially Vista compatible. In particular, the piece necessary for installing new Palm applications doesn’t work.But it syncs just fine … if you’re using Office 2003. If you’re using Office 2007, Palm has an upgraded conduit that handles it which you can freely download.The only problem is, you can’t install it, because the software can’t install new Palm applications … At this point the evidence is circumstantial but clear. With so many different software vendors playing catch-up, it’s unlikely that every single one was remiss. Which leads to a hard-to-avoid conclusion: Microsoft seriously bobbled the ball on this one. You’d think it would have at least included an XP compatibility mode in Vista if it’s as different as it seems to be.Heck, even Windows 3.1 had a DOS compatibility box.Maybe it’s time I stopped griping and started providing useful advice. So here goes: Vista is a beautiful object lesson for what happens when you make dates sacrosanct. When software isn’t ready to go into production, you’d better be very sure every stakeholder buys into the need to roll it out anyway.If they don’t recognize the risk, tell them the story of the three little software vendors and the Big Bad Vista.– Bob Powered by ScribeFire. Technology Industry