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A top Microsoft executive today compared Apple's iPhone 4 to his own company's problem-plagued Vista operating system.

"It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I'm okay with that," said Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer, in a keynote speech at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which runs through Thursday in Washington, D.C.

The successor to Windows XP, Vista launched in early 2007 and was heavily criticized by users, and in a series of e-mails that became public during a class-action lawsuit, even by the company's own senior executives. The consensus, deserved or not, has become that Vista was one of Microsoft's worst operating systems.

Earlier in his talk, Turner poked fun at the reception problems that have dogged Apple's iPhone 4 since its June 24 launch. "One of the things I want to make sure you know today is that you're going to be able to use a Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you're holding it to make a phone call," Turner said, referring to the Microsoft mobile operating system set to debut on smartphones this fall.

Computerworld has the details HERE!