14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Vista has barely passed its first eight weeks on the market and there are voices demanding a full autopsy of an early pronounced dead operating system. There are of course two perspectives on this, and they by no means share the same tune. On one end, there is Microsoft. At the other pole the are the end users, the original equipment manufacturers, the system builders, the environment of software and hardware developers. And there is an unnatural gap between Microsoft and Windows Vista on one side and the rest of the world on the other, between what users want (Windows XP), and what Microsoft is offering (Windows Vista).
At this time, Microsoft is offering inhouse competition to Windows Vista with strong support for Windows XP. Such a move from the Redmond company is a strategic gambit, designed to sacrifice Vista for the time being and to prolong the expiration of XP. Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, Business, Enterprise and Starter Edition; Windows XP Professional and Home; Media Center Edition; Tablet PC Edition; and other standard Windows operating systems represent the current offerings in terms of the Windows desktop client from Microsoft.
This scenario contributes to the widening of the borderline separating Vista from users and the partners in the various sales channels. But while Microsoft will end up on top in the end, Vista will be made to suffer. The latest move from the Redmond company is to prolong the availability of Windows XP licenses via direct OEM and retail licenses until June 30, 2008, five months after the initially planned date.
A Windows sale is a Windows sale, Microsoft will still pocket the money, but the fact of the matter is that it could have been Vista. "We released Windows Vista, the latest generation of the Windows operating system, in fiscal year 2007. This release concluded a major development phase that we believe resulted in a significantly more manageable and powerful PC operating system compared to prior releases. Windows Vista includes advances in security, digital media, user interfaces, and other areas that enhance the user and developer experience", reads a fragment of the Microsoft Annual Report 2007.
And yet OEMs, acting on customer input, have in their turn flooded Microsoft with feedback to the point where the company agreed to let them continue to offer Windows XP. The Windows business will continue to deliver profit, fueled by both XP and Vista. But Vista can be hurt irremediably. "Client revenue growth is correlated with the growth of purchases of personal computers from OEMs that pre-install versions of Windows operating systems as the OEM channel accounts for over 80% of total Client revenue," stated another excerpt of the Microsoft Annual Report 2007.
80% of all Windows copies sold worldwide come from original equipment manufacturers such as HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo etc. And if the OEMs continue to focus on XP, this means that Vista will share the 80% with XP. At this point, there is no telling how the percentage will be shared between the two operating systems, but without full OEM support, Vista is indeed dead.