A lot of people have openly criticized Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, but a Senator in Texas has taken it to a whole new level.

According to the San Antonio Express News, Senator Juan Hinojosa has attached a rider to the bill approving the State’s budget that will require government departments to get written approval before purchasing Vista technology related to an operating system, equipment or licenses.

Hinojosa, Senate Finance Committee vice chairman, said, “We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It’s not compatible with other equipment, and it’s supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it’s not.”

Microsoft, not surprisingly, was disappointed enough to issue the following statement.

Given our daily work with government agencies and longstanding technology partnership, we’re surprised that the Texas Senate Finance Committee adopted a rider which, in effect, singles out a specific corporation and product for unequal treatment. We hope as the budget continues to go through the process this language will be removed.

The vote on the bill is expected to happen tomorrow.

A lot has happened since AT&T confirmed they would be selling contract-free iPhones, including…

• In the United Kingdom, O2 started giving them away to customers willing to sign a 24 month contract instead of the usual 18 months.
• In the United States, Apple has also started selling the iPhone in their retail stores without the regular AT&T contract. The catch is that the units are still locked to AT&T, although that can be easily fixed.

Both of the above examples further strengthen the belief that a new version of the iPhone is due very soon, making it difficult for any potential customer to make the decision – by now and upgrade the software when 3.0 is released, or wait until the next generation is released?