October 17, 2008 11:03 AM PST
San Francisco, CA - Although refusing to make projections in public, company insiders here at Demosoft Corporation headquarters privately described the atmosphere as triumphant in anticipation of the release of Carter 2.0. Despite the armies of programmers that continue to work around the clock to patch bugs in the new operating system's code, executives say they are confident that the new software will be ready to ship on the 20th of January as promised.

Version 2.0 represents the first major revision of Demosoft's flagship product in over 25 years. "We always felt that our original product was superior to the competition's," explained Demosoft CEO and Chairman Howard Dean. "And after the disastrous performance of their Bush 2.0 software, we think that users agree with us. With some repackaging and a slicker interface, we think they'll give us another shot."

Sources at Demosoft say Dean remains "prickly" about the company's attempt in the 1990s to regain market share with its Bill software, which emulated the rival MicroGOP interface while leaving the heart of the Carter 1.0 operating system unchanged. "Back in the 90s, certain members of the board thought we needed our products to look and feel more like the competition's in order to keep the company alive," one insider explained. "Now that Dean's chairman, some of those people may still be on the board, but they don't make any of the important decisions."

While surveys show that most PC users intend to buy a copy of Carter 2.0 the first day it goes on sale, a sizable minority remains unconvinced that Demosoft will be able to deliver the new features it has promised. Beta testers in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois have proved to be the most skeptical nationwide. One such user, who identified himself in an online forum as Joe Plumber, said that Carter 2.0 is "just a more bloated version of the original," and that his computer had experienced a significant slow-down since installing the new software.

Elaborating further via email, Plumber explained, "At first it worked fine and it even seemed a little faster like they said. But after a couple months things just bogged down to the point that I couldn't get any work done. I called tech support and they claimed nothing was wrong. They just said that now that almost every computer is connected to the internet, we're all part of one network and it might be necessary to slow my computer down so that my neighbor's can run faster. That didn't make any sense to me. I talked to my neighbor and he said his computer's running slow as s---, too."

When asked about Mr. Plumber's complaints, Mr. Dean became visibly agitated. "Look, I don't know who this Plumber guy is but he obviously hasn't even used the software or else he'd be happy with it. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he's getting paid by MicroGOP."

But Mr. Plumber is not alone. A quick search of online discussion forums showed that the most common terms used to describe Carter 2.0 were "resource hog," "bloatware," and "pork OS."

One user said that he used to have a choice of hundreds of fonts with his old software but that, "now with PelosiPoint and ReidWrite, all I get is 10-pt Courier."

Another said that he could no longer change his desktop wallpaper. "I used to be able to use whatever photo I wanted. Now my only option is royal blue."

Others said that the real problem isn't with Carter 2.0 itself, but with the bundled application software. Said one user, "My system had enough memory to handle Carter 2.0, but once I started PelosiPoint and ReidWrite, the whole thing crashed."

When asked about these and other problems such as longer wait times and incompatibility with non-Demosoft applications, Mr. Dean offered the following explanation.

"Look, most people will be very happy with Carter 2.0. But some people are afraid of change, and when they're confronted with something new, they cling to the old ways of doing things. But we're confident that after a year or so, they'll get used to it and won't remember how they used to do things."

Michael Moore, Demosoft's VP for Operating System Development, went further. "Some of the so-called bugs that these beta testers have reported are really features that everyday users who aren't so technically savvy have been asking for. Our focus groups show that 10-pt Courier was more popular than any other font, with a 10% favorable rating compared to 9% for Times New Roman, and that royal blue was less offensive than any other color. All I can say is wait for the final release, and if you still have questions, tech support will be ready to explain how the new features are better for you."

Mr. Moore also speculated that the complaints really have nothing to do with Carter 2.0, but instead reflect a reaction to Demosoft's choice of packaging color for the beta version: "It's amazing that some beta testers could still be this superficial in this day and age, but some of them really just don't like black."

Some potential users have expressed a willingness to upgrade to Carter 2.0 as long as they can switch back later if they choose. Although Mr. Moore would not rule out an uninstall program in a future service pack, he doubted that it would be necessary. "Some of the changes in Carter 2.0 are so fundamental that undoing them would require years of hard work. In fact, it would probably be easier to just reformat your hard drive. But we don't think our users will do that."