Microsoft Hopes for Smoother Vista Sailing

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Analysis: SEATTLE — In launching its delayed but ambitious new operating system,
Vista, and Office 2007, Microsoft faces the most daunting competitor in its
history – itself.

Windows XP and Office 2003 are well-entrenched and the “known quantity”
corporate America, and IT departments specifically, feel safer dealing with the known rather than unknown of recently-released software. In fact, for the many companies
that still use the earlier versions of Windows NT and Office, a
transition to Vista is not even on their radar.

At the WinHEC conference here, Microsoft made its best case for faster
Vista adoption, unveiling new features, product strategies and customer endorsements.

“One of the things we’re doing this time is we’ve released more builds
along the way and we’ve had 15,000 beta testers,” Michael Burk, a Microsoft
Vista spokesman, told internetnews.com. Further, Microsoft’s said
this week’s Beta 2 release of “Longhorn” Vista Server will be available to
more than 500,000 subscribers to developer networks and other
distributions to the IT community.

“That’s a little different than what we did with XP,” said Burk. “And it
gives those people a head start on application compatibility, lab tests and
figuring out the best deployment strategy on multiple machines.”

Bottom line, Microsoft is betting that despite the delay in finally
getting Vista commercially ready, the finished product will be more stable
and feature packed than its predecessors. The stakes are high for Microsoft
and also its many partners.

On the consumer side, “If there isn’t the clear, rapid transition
Microsoft expects, the peripheral makers rule because they’ll sell the
faster hard drives and other upgrades people will buy rather than new
systems,” Richard Doherty, director of Envisioneering, told
internetnews.com.

“But if you’re a system maker, a slow transition is a death knell,
particularly if there are any more delays. ‘Vista Ready’ is a very fuzzy
marketing message to use to sell PCs when most people aren’t aware of the
potential benefits.”

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