Microsoft released Windows Vista, its latest operating system into a world dominated by Windows XP. Vista went live to business users in November 2006, and to general consumers in January 2007, and following the completion of six months on the market, Microsoft applauded the over 60 million Vista licenses shipped into the channel. But the truth of the matter is that the $500 million Vista Wow campaign, delivering a tad too much Sotto Voce message to begin with, went limp in no time, and lost all its momentum. Just one week short of Vista's first eight months of availability, Microsoft has dropped the Wow altogether, making no more references to it.

And there is nothing but bad news for Vista. Joshua Levine, from ChangeWave, a research firm owned by Phillips Investment Resources, indicated in a survey that in the "August ChangeWave consumer survey, 61% of respondents reported that Vista came preinstalled on the computer they purchased during the past 90 days, versus 32% for Windows XP." This is a trend that continues to increase. It is no wonder that Dell is offering Windows XP preinstalled on its machines alongside Windows Vista.

Vista is also underperforming in terms of the sales of boxed copies of the operating system when compared with those of XP. The NPD Group stated that Vista retail sales are inferior to those of its predecessor by no less than 59.7%. ComputerWorld is reporting that while system builders are supporting XP over Vista, larger original equipment manufacturers are trying to convince Microsoft to let them offer XP past the January 31 expiration date for the availability date for the retail and OEM channels.

60 million sold Vista copies are roughly the equivalent of a 6% share of the operating system market, and about the same percentage that Windows XP lost since the introduction of its successor. Statistics delivered by Market Share by Net Applications reveal without a doubt the fact that Windows XP is the biggest competitor to Windows Vista. XP dropped from 85.02% in January to just 80.48% at the end of August. In the same period of time, Vista grew from 0.18% to 6.26%.

The only thing at this point that will jump start Vista sales is the combination of the first service pack for the operating system, planned for the first quarter of 2008 and the expiration of XP from direct OEM and retail channels at the beginning of the upcoming year. Gartner is estimating that over 250 million computers will ship worldwide by the end of 2007. This number will increase in 2008, and the vast majority of those machines will come preloaded with Vista and then with Vista SP1. But for now, Windows Vista seems to be flatlining and the still consistent demand for Windows XP is at fault.