Vista creates twice the wealth in US as in Europe
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Bigger help desks, good news all round The launch of Microsoft's Vista will create 100,000 jobs in the US, the same as that claimed for Europe, but will bring in almost twice as much cash - some $70bn.â¦
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The software maker proves that its form of capitalism is working quite well, with quarterly earnings topping its own and Wall Street's predictions.
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Microsoft posted its first-quarter 2005 financial results last week, reporting revenue of US$9.19 billion and net income of $2.9 billion.
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European shares strongly extended gains on Friday after data showed job creation in the U.S. economy was double expectations at 337,000 in October.
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Partners will actually make more from next Windows than Microsoft in 2007, study says.
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By Benjamin J. Romano, Seattle Times  Dec. 11--As Microsoft revs up the Windows Vista marketing engine, it's touting the economic boon the software is expected to bring to the rest of the technology industry.
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Microsoft reported surprising strong quarterly sales and profit growth, well ahead of Wall Streetâs expectations, which sent its stock up 12 percent in after-hours trading.
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Worldwide external controller-based disc storage revenue totalled $3.2bn (Â£1.8bn) in the second quarter, up 5.1% from the $3.1bn recorded in the same period last year.
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Microsoft is pumping out a global $500 million Vista advertising campaign which is expected to serve 6.6 billion impressions in the first few months. Marketing stunts and sponsorships will include a human billboard with 16 dancers, party in Times Square, LeBron James in the TV ads, and CEO Steve Ballmer will greet customers at Best Buy [...]
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Profits double at American Greetings as new initiatives gain traction.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O, the world's  largest software maker, on Thursday reported that its quarterly  profit doubled on stronger demand for personal computers and  video games as well as lower costs.
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US sales of computers carrying Microsoft's new operating system Vista soared in the week after it was launched, defying the expectations of analysts who gave Vista lackluster reviews.
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Demand for the Vista Windows system and other products helps Microsoft to quarterly profits of $3.03bn, up 11% on last year.
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Microsoft has modified Vista for release in Europe to meet European Commission requirements.
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Next version of Windows will create a cascade of benefits for local European economies, says Microsoft-sponsored study.
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A Croatian college student has created a utility that installs a seriously stripped-down Windows Vista, saying the heft of Microsoft's biggest desktop operating system is just too big to believe."Who can justify a 15GB operating system?" asked Dino Nuhagic, a fifth-year student from Split, a Croatian city on the Adriatic. Not Nuhagic, or the uncounted users who have turned to his creation, vLite.The free program lets users pick and choose which Vista components, hot fixes, drivers, and even language packs are installed, then builds a disk image that can be burned to a DVD for unattended installation of the operating system."Why did I do it? Well, it's performance and work environment," Nuhagic said when asked why he came up with vLite. "Performance, that's easy to explain. The less things running, the more responsive the OS. But the environment part is where it gets down to personal preference."Those preferences include options for leaving out virtually every component of Windows Vista, from the minor -- such as the bundled screensavers -- to the major, such as the firewall or Universal Plug and Play.Some vLite users, in fact, have made it a contest of sorts to come up with the puniest-possible installation package for the operating system. While Microsoft recommends that users set aside 15GB of hard-disk space to install its pride and joy, Nuhagic's fans boast of squeezing it into an image file as small as 515MB that takes up just 1.4GB on the hard drive.One user reported condensing Windows Vista Home Basic into a 526MB .iso file and installing it in a virtual machine that used just 1.3GB of drive space. "It worked well inside the virtual machine and since I have 1GB of RAM on the host I guess the little Vista would work well," said amocanu.Nuhagic didn't come right out and say it, but he hinted that he -- like more critical users and pundits -- thought Vista was bloated and could use some reducing. "To be frank, I don't need 90 percent of Windows. But that 10 percent, which guarantees that you can run [the] majority of games out there, is what is worth isolating."Crafting vLite wasn't easy, he said. But the time Nuhagic spent on its predecessor, nLite, which similarly squeezes Windows 2000 and Windows XP, paid off in spades. "Since I had four years of experience with tampering [with] older Windows, it was a lot easier than nLite," Nuhagic said of the development of vLite. "Also, it was easier than in XP because Vista does not have the old-style installation. It doesn't install components one by one, but simply extracts the image. Where XP would fail during install because a certain file was missing, that issue is not present in Vista."Even though vLite features a simple graphical interface that lets users remove a component with a click, Nuhagic warned that the utility isn't designed for the average user: "Because of certain possible compatibility issues with the programs out there [that] expect full Windows, I'd recommend [it] only to users [that] want exactly that kind of tool. In other words, I would not recommend it to someone who installs their OS once every few years. But if you do it every few months, then it's a must."Nuhagic couldn't say how many people use vLite, or even the number of times it's been downloaded from his Web site. "I don't have counters installed because the FTP mirrors were donated, and I would have to upgrade my hosting for some extra script processing," he said of his shoestring operation. It shouldn't be a surprise, however, that nLite, the Windows XP miniaturizer, remains four to five times more popular than vLite, based on the number of visitors to the different nLite and vLite Web sites.Microsoft knows of the tools -- Nuhagic said the company has contacted him in the past about possible employment -- but it's done little to quash the condensing. When asked whether it had any thoughts on vLite, a company spokeswoman e-mailed a lukewarm warning."Microsoft does not recommend using any tool to strip out applications from Windows Vista prior to installing it on your system, as it may affect your ability to download future Windows Updates and Service Packs, and may cause your system to become unstable," she said.But vLite's users praised Nuhagic's efforts with blunter language. "Thanks for spending your time making our OS less bloated," said one.VLite 1.1 can be downloaded from Nuhagic's Web site.
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Likely aimed at allaying European Union fears, a Microsoft-commissioned study by research firm IDC indicates 50,000 jobs would be created across six countries in Europe as a result of Windows Vista.