Rick Nelson

Vista’s ecosystem flourishes
January 30, 2007

So, have you upgraded to Vista yet? I don’t plan to until I’m forced to replace my current XP machine, no matter what LeBron James has to say. I simply fail to see any Vista advantage worth Vista’s $100 to $260 price tag, its undoubtedly lengthy installation time, and the unavoidable compatibility aggravations that are certain to arise. And by the way, I don’t plan an immediate upgrade to Office 2007 either.

My view seems to be the minority one, however. According to a report in the New York Times, Microsoft CEO Steven A. Ballmer expects today to be “the biggest product launch in Microsoft’s history.” What the Times calls “a first-year marketing budget of hundreds of millions of dollars” will undoubtedly cause shrink-wrapped Vista and Office upgrades to fly off the shelves.

What continues to drive Windows’ popularity despite the availability of relatively stable and secure--and even free--alternatives? In addition to Microsoft’s hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing budget and a basketball-player endorsement, Windows is driven by the symbiotic relationship Microsoft has established with an “IT ecosystem” of third-party developers, resellers, retailers, and hardware manufacturers. According to IDC, as reported in ITJungle, this ecosystem will pull in $18 in revenue for every dollar in revenue Microsoft gains from Vista. That’s a bonanza that makes serious Vista cheerleaders out of PC makers, for example, who will charge an estimated 20% more for a Vista-ready machine than for a similar XP version.

No matter where the Vista hype is coming from, it seems to be working. As noted in the Times, Dell’s chief executive says that the company has already received orders for tens of thousands of Vista-equipped systems. There’s no mention of how many Dell customers have opted into the company’s plant-a-tree program.

Posted by Rick Nelson on January 30, 2007 | Comments (1)