They really are. Are you listening?

First it was Bill Gates , now it’s Steve Ballmer. In the latest example, Todd Bishop of SeattlePI reported from last week’s Microsoft MVP Summit that at the meeting’s keynote address that Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer called Vista “a work in progress.”

Vista? A work in progress? After more than five-years of development and over a year after its release? My goodness, Ballmer was actually being relatively honest about Windows. That was a red-letter day.

Of course, while every operating system is a work in progress, there are works in progress and then there’s software that simply never should have been released. Guess which category Vista falls into?

While I could tell you in great detail why Vista is junk, I won’t bother this time, since Ballmer did a fine job himself. He said that Vista needed improvements in system performance, software and hardware compatibility and battery life. Oh, and he also admitted that Vista requires more system resources, a lot more, and newer system resources, than XP.

Ballmer also said, when it came to system resources, that, “We can’t just set the dial back, but I think people wish we could.” You think?

Even Microsoft’s own top-brass thought Vista was junk when it first showed up. We now know that for a fact thanks to U.S. District Court prying Microsoft internal memos from the company. These revealed Microsoft executives finding that they couldn’t run Vista successfully.

So, what is Microsoft to do now? Well, Ballmer said he’s still listening to people who’d like to give XP a longer lease on light. With the coming of Windows XP SP 3, perhaps as early as April 21st, those voices are only going to get louder.

At the same time, Ballmer’s declaration that “We can’t ever let that happen again,” about Vista’s seemingly endless development cycle sounds like Microsoft really wants Windows 7 out sooner than later.

But what you do in the meantime if you want to upgrade your PC or get a new one. Well, if you’re happy with XP, XP SP3 is a must. But, if you really want to try something better and newer though, might I recommend that you look in on Ubuntu 8.04. It will be out within the week, not sometime between 2009 and 2010, and even its release candidate is better than Vista SP1.