14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Vista was released in two separate stages. Microsoft differentiated between the corporate environment and the home users and celebrated two separate launches for the operating system. Windows Vista hit the shelves on January 30, 2007. But before the operating system was made available to the general public, Microsoft released the platform for enterprise customers.
Windows Vista has come a long way since January 30, 2007, and even further since November 30, 2006. Designed to replace Windows XP as the world's ubiquitous operating system Vista's market performance has been in accordance with Microsoft's initial forecasting.
Windows XP's market share, stagnant due to the high level of saturation, has dropped from 85.02% in December 2006 to just 82,65% in April 2007. Windows Vista has slowly been eroding XP's share and by comparison, it grew from a share of 0.16% in December 2006 to 3.02% in April 2007, according to data made available by Market Share by Net Applications.
"In our first five weeks we've matched the entire installed base of any other provider of similar software. So just in five weeks we've gotten out to those levels. And the reaction has been very strong. We've got people who are talking about the ease of upgrade, the excitement around DreamScenes. We've got families who are using photo tagging, and organizing their information in new ways. We've had a good experience with the support issues, because of the way that we connect up the Web, and get the latest drivers, and the first 90 days ease of set up has actually been better than any version that we've got," revealed Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates during his time on stage at Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2007 in Los Angeles on May 15.
Pre-Wow, Nothing but Pure Business...
November 30, 2006 was synonymous with the business access to Windows Vista and 2007 Office System, but Microsoft's Business Value Launch at the NASDAQ headquarters in New York City was far from the grandiose celebration of the consumer market launch. As you can see from the images integrated below, Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer launched Windows Vista, 2007 Office System and Exchange Server 2007.
"It's an honor and privilege to have a chance to be here, (...) the largest wave of products we've ever kicked off, and all anchored around the most significant releases that maybe we've ever done, and certainly we've done since 1995 of our two flagship products, Microsoft Windows, the Windows Vista release, and Microsoft Office 2007," Ballmer said back in November.
The images (courtesy of Nick White, Microsoft Program Manager) have been taken first-hand at the Business Value Launch event at NASDAQ headquarters in New York City. At NASDAQ Ballmer opened the day's trading on the exchange concomitantly with the launch.
"This is the biggest launch in our company's history, that's for sure, and, frankly, I think these are the two most significant releases we've ever done of these flagship products in terms of the depth and breadth of functionality that's built in, the new scenarios that get enabled, both today, as I'll talk about on the business side, but in the consumer side as well, as we move forward," he added.
Vista Launch:
One Billion Here, One Billion There...
Windows Vista is a six billion dollar operating system. In Bill Gates' own words, Vista is the best $6 billion that he has ever spent. An additional $500 million have been poured into the Vista Wow marketing campaign. Gates has referred to the launch of Windows Vista as the most visible software product in history. As a matter of fact, just as you will be able to see from the images below, Windows Vista ads have saturated the major markets worldwide. Commercials for the latest Microsoft operating system have literally crawled into every nook and cranny of available ad space.
Microsoft has achieved its predictions for Vista's market performances. The company promised that the operating system will sell double than XP, and the Vista sales rate confirmed Microsoft's position. In the first month of availability, Microsoft counted in excess of 20 million vista licenses sold.
"Of course, a huge milestone for the industry is when we come up with a major new version of Windows. That was true for Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows XP, and it's perhaps most true of the breadth of things that we did in Windows Vista," Gates said at WinHEC 2007. "Getting that out, launched the consumer version in January, was the most visible software introduction ever. We had over 3,000 broadcast and print stories. We had an ad campaign with the theme of "Wow." It ran in over 20 countries. And so for us it was record-breaking in every way. We got into 39,000 stores in 700 countries for the launch, and a lot of you participated in that, and we want to thank you for all the work in making that a reality."
Windows Vista Wow:
Windows Vista in Redmond Utero Birthing the Wow
Under the slogan the "Wow Starts Now" Microsoft has launched Windows Vista on January 30, 2007 in New York. In the first 100 days on the market Windows Vista has sold approximately 40 million copies. "Now we can go back and talk about some of the success that was driven by the launch, talk about the Vista First 100 Days. We've really been amazed at the customer response. I mean, we knew that [Windows] Vista would become the standard version of Windows. We knew that the industry was stepping up to take advantage of those capabilities, but what's happened in the last 100 days has been beyond our expectations. As of last week, we've had nearly 40 million copies sold, and so that's twice as fast as the adoption of Windows XP, the last major release that we've had," Gates explained.
Vista in Redmond:
