Vista launch more whimper than bang for businesses
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(InfoWorld) - Thursday was finally windows Vista launch day. But though banners were flying in downtown Manhattan on the big day, celebrating the launch of Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007, CEO Steve Ballmer made it clear that the company is anxious to move on, while business customers pegged for Vista adoption wondered whether there was really much to celebrate. âThereâs a bunch of work we still need to do,â Ballmer said of the next Windows client OS. Supporting the shift from single-core to multicore chips and improvements in network infrastructure are priorities. Microsoft also wants to add more features to meet the needs of IT administrators, software developers and end-users. âHow we do software plus service within Windows is going to continue to be a big theme,â Ballmer said. Enterprise customers were wary. âSure itâs a big day for Microsoft, but what are we really getting?â asks Paul Lindo, an independent New York IT consultant. âWith all the delays and features being dropped, this looks to me like it might just be Windows XP with a prettier face.â Vista suffered several features âadjustmentsâ as well as a lengthier-than-expected road to shrink, including the infamous 2004 dumping of WinFS and a ground-up re-programming effort. But now that the day is finally here, Microsoft is well pleased with its new OS offering. âIt may have been a long road, but watching how our early adopters are responding to the platform, we know weâve got a winner,â said Brad Goldberg, Microsoftâs general manager of client product management. Responding to views such as Lindoâs, Goldberg said he remained assured. âVista was designed specifically to give business users recognizable benefits over the last generation platform,â he said. âThat includes productivity, security, networking and noticeably less reliance on IT.â Those last two items especially represent significant development efforts, covering the new UAC authentication model, updated internal diagnostics (including error messages that actually speak English), a completely revamped networking client and new IT tools such as the Reliability Monitor -- a quick dashboard of system reliability. These features were built specifically so users would spend less time talking to the help desk, thus decreasing overall IT spending. Windows is far better prepared for initial deployment than its predecessors, Goldberg said, citing more than a year of overall QA effort, by far the longest QA period in Microsoftâs history. Despite the enterprise focus of some features, it will still be consumers who lead the charge on Vista adoption. According to a report released by IDC last week, Vista will account for 90 percent of new Windows client deployments in 2007 by home users, compared with just 35 percent of new Windows client deployments by businesses.
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Windows Vista lands in stores Tuesday, more than five years after its predecessor Windows XP debuted. With that much time for Microsoft to rewrite its operating system, you might expect it to be a sharp break from the Windows we've known.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft kicked off the day-long launch of itsÂ Vista operating system,Â Office 2007 suite, andÂ Exchange Server 2007Â applications for enterprise users with events at three locations in Asia Thursday. It's the first time that new versions of Windows and Office have been launched simultaneously since 1995 and that makes it one of Microsoft's biggest launches in years. The three products became available Thursday to volume licensing customers. Consumer versions won't be available until next year. "I'm super excited about this launch today. It's been a very long journey but now I can say that we have truly arrived," said Darren Huston, president and chief executive officer of Microsoft's Japan unit. The launch, which began with an event Sydney and was followed with similar events in Tokyo and Beijing, provided Microsoft a stage from which to talk-up the three products and showcase some of the businesses that have already committed to roll-outs. Microsoft Japan already has 57 companies that have said they'll roll out at least one of the three products. The list includes some big names like Sharp, Sanyo Electric, McDonalds Holdings Company (Japan), Nikon, major electric power generator Chubu Electric Power Co., computer game maker Capcom Co., and trading company Itochu. Interest from potential usersÂ in Japan has been high, said Huston. Of 5 million downloads and 1 billion user sessions conducted as part of the beta testing for Windows Vista, about 20 percent have been by users in Japan. The country accounts for about 10 percent of the global IT market. Speaking in Tokyo Jay Jamison, leader of Microsoft's Windows business group in Japan, said, "We are hopeful and optimistic that in Japan Windows Vista will be the most successful business OS release of Windows ever." In Australia companies including BDO Chartered Accountants & Advisers and alcoholic beverage manufacturer and distributor Lion Nathan have already begun testing the products. Later Thursday Microsoft will hold launch events in Munich, London, Paris, Toronto, and New York. A consumer version of Windows Vista is due on Jan. 30 next year in many countries. (Rodney Gedda of Computerworld Australia contributed to this report)
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The Microsoft operating system is improved by SP1, but Windows Vista still is missing some features we'd like to see.
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Slip of the tongue - or the brain Comment The UK Developer launch of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System was pretty impressive, as such things usually are.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - In the first year of its release, Microsoft Corp. is expecting businesses to adoptÂ Windows Vista twice as fast as any other version of Windows, with 10 times as many Vista business seats deployed at launch than any previous release of the OS. Despite this optimism, analysts still don't expect businesses to begin adopting Vista in earnest until late 2007 or even 2008, with many waiting for the first service pack version of Vista before they begin considering an upgrade. One reason Microsoft is expecting Vista to be so successful is that the company has made a concerted effort to give customers the tools and training they need to adopt Vista across their businesses, said Brad Goldberg, general manager of the Windows Client Business Group at Microsoft. The company also put test versions of the OS into as many people's hands as possible. For the previous Windows migration, to Windows XP, Microsoft didn't release important tools to help businesses upgrade -- such as a compatibility toolkit to ensure existing applications will work -- until Service Pack 2, which was released nine months after Windows XP shipped, he said. However, with Windows Vista, "we made the beta of the [compatibility] toolkit available with Windows Vista Beta 2," Goldberg said. Microsoft also has opened up test versions of the OS to a wide audience, making Release Candidate 1 (RC1) available to the public. Microsoft expects that at least 5 million users will have access to Vista RC1, all of whom the company has encouraged to provide feedback about the release so it can be as polished as possible before it goes out to business customers in November. Another reason Microsoft expects businesses to warm to Vista early is that the company is doing its share to educate customers on how much money they can save by adopting it, Goldberg said. Microsoft has worked with analysts to develop customer case studies to see how much money business customers can save per PC by upgrading to Vista from their current OS. Al Gillen, an analyst with research firm IDC, does not dispute Microsoftâs calculations for the return on investment (ROI) companies will make on Windows Vista, though he says that companies âdonât get the âRâ unless they put in the âIâ first.â âThe ROI story is exciting, but it requires that customers be mature and agile enough to do what they need to do afterwards,â Gillen said. And while Microsoft may meet its ambitious first-year goals for Vista, that momentum will likely peter out, once pent-up demand has been met, Gillen said. âEighteen months out, the adoption curve will look like any other Windows product,â Gillen said. âItâs hard to move corporate customers faster than they are willing to go.â Microsoftâs bullish projections donât appear to jibe with most current third-party customer surveys, such as one online survey of 314 IT professionals conducted by Computerworld in August. Just 17 percent of IT professionals say they are considering rolling out Windows Vista in the first year. Forty-one percent of respondents said they had no plans to roll out Vista, while 35 percent said they would begin testing Vista only after it ships. Of those who said they were considering rolling out Vista in the near or long-term, the largest group (29 percent) said the cost was the biggest determinant of if and when they would upgrade. That was followed by the hardware requirements (16 percent), the amount of employee training (6 percent) and the amount of IT staff retraining (4 percent). Even if Microsoft doesn't meet its goals for Vista, it's not likely to affect the company's revenue. According to one financial analyst firm, Microsoft stands to lose only about $400 million in revenue in fiscal 2008 if Vista business adoption does not go according to the company's plan, and $2 billion in fiscal 2009. In its most recent fiscal year ended June 30, Microsoft reported more than $44 billion in revenue. While the company is optimistic about adoption in its marketing, it is being far more conservative in its financial estimates, analysts said. This is obviously good news for Microsoft, but there is a downside. The longer Vista is available, the more it will cost the company if businesses continue to hold off on adopting the OS. And any negative press or analyst feedback on lackluster Vista adoption could drive Microsoft's stock price down, analysts said. (Eric Lai is a senior writer at Computerworld.)
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A Microsoft-sponsored study says that Windows Vista will generate some $70 billion in revenue and create up to 100,000 jobs in the first year of its release. The report also forecasts rapid and widespread adoption of the OS.
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Microsoft Corp.   said on Thursday it sees no reason why its new Windows Vista  operating system would be delayed, but it stopped short of  committing to its previously stated launch target.
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Despite underwhelming consumers and being&#160;snubbed by enterprises,&#160;Windows Vista&#39;s numbers keep growing, with Microsoft&#160; saying Thursday that it has now shipped 88 million copies of the operating system, almost double the number of copies of XP in the same amount of time at its launch.In late July, Microsoft said it had hit the&#160;60 million shipment mark with Vista.Microsoft had previously said that it had&#160;shipped 20 million copies of Vista&#160;in its first month and 40 million copies of Vista in the first 100 days.Microsoft credited Vista with helping it&#160;beat Wall Street expectations&#160;and raise financial projections for the rest of the year. The company reported revenue of $13.76 billion for the first quarter ended Sept. 30, up 27 percent from the same quarter in 2006.Revenue in its client segment, which includes all consumer versions of Windows, was $4.14 billion, edging out the $4.11 billion in revenue from the Microsoft Business Division where Office is produced.CFO Chris Liddell credited strong sales in emerging markets, due in part to anti-piracy and legalization programs there.Client revenues, however, did not top those of the first calendar quarter this year, when Vista was officially launched. Revenues at that time were $5.32 billion.Three-quarters of the copies sold of Vista were higher-priced &#39;premium&#39; versions, compared to 59 percent of the copies of Windows -- primarily XP -- available a year ago.The 88 million figure mostly includes Vista-installed PCs bought by consumers and small businesses, as well as packaged copies of Vista sold in stores or online.It does exclude the tens of millions of Windows corporate volume licenses. There, many enterprises continue to hold off on deploying Vista, acknowledged CFO Chris Liddell, though he expects them to start deploying it when Vista Service Pack 1&#39;s arrival in the first quarter of next year.Nevertheless, revenue from companies renewing their volume licenses for Windows, which gives them the right to upgrade to Vista, was up 27 percent.Other highlights from the statistics:-- Unit sales of Windows Server&#39;s premium enterprise edition were up 35 percent year-over-year;-- A release candidate for Windows Server 2008 has been downloaded more than one million times in its first month;-- Unit and revenue growth of SQL Server were both up more than 15 percent;-- Halo 3 generated $330 million in revenue;-- Xbox 360 console unit sales increased 90 percent, driven by a price cut in August and Halo 3-related demand;-- Client revenues, including those for Vista, are expected to grow 62-64 percent year-over-year in the current fiscal Q2, or 13-14 percent excluding certain revenue deferrals in the prior year;-- Microsoft Business Division revenues, including those for Office, are expected to grow 15-16 percent in Q2 after normalizing for impact of technology guarantees and pre-shipment deferrals in the prior year;-- A beta version of Office Communications Server has been downloaded 80,000 times;-- There are 10,000 customers in the Customer Technical Preview (CTP) program for PerformancePoint Server, its new business intelligence offering.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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By Jessica Mintz  NEW YORK - Acrobatics, blaring music and plenty of hype accompanied Microsoft Corp.'s long-delayed debut of its new Windows Vista operating system.
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The final version of Vista SP1 kills the Kill Switch, and adds many under-the-hood improvements -- but on at least one system, file copying is actually slower.
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About half of businesses surveyed are in some phase of updating to Windows Vista, according to a study commissioned by reseller CDW and based on information collected from 772 IT decision makers.
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Microsoft has yet to release key tools supporting volume activations of Windows Vista, making it harder for companies that want to deploy the new operating system to do so.
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By Benjamin J. Romano, The Seattle Times  Jan. 29--NEW YORK -- Microsoft is calling for the world's attention today  as it launches Windows Vista and Office 2007, new versions of the two products  used by millions and responsible for most of the company's profits.
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Microsoft is polishing Vista with a long-awaited service pack in hopes of greater adoption among businesses.
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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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By Jessica Mintz  Acrobatics, blaring music and plenty of hype accompanied Microsoft Corp.'s long-delayed debut of its new Windows Vista operating system.