Microsoft banks on Windows 7 double holiday hit
Business as usual
Ensure Ease of Recovery with Asigra’s Agentless Software
Comment Microsoft has enlisted the dedicated cheerleadership of IDC to write a report that says how Windows 7 will boost employment and revenue for the IT industry as a whole - and for companies in the Microsoft partner ecosystem in particular.
The software giant paid IDC to produce exactly the same kind of reports during 2006 on Windows Vista. The report came out between Windows Vista's "business" and "consumer" launches and saw IDC predict everything would be fabulous for adoption.
Treading carefully and comparing the two paid works, it looks like Microsoft is hoping it can milk two periods of busy consumer shopping activity this time around to boost Windows 7.
For partners, it seems Windows 7 will mean business as usual with the usual round of upgrades, but no bonanza they can retire on.
IDC is reported to have said Windows 7 will hit 177 million units shipped by the end of 2010.
That compares to 100 million units of Windows Vista that IDC in 2006 said would have shipped by the end of the first year of the operating system's availability - which we should take to be the end of December 2007. You can download the 2006 paid report here (warning: PDF).
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft claimed Windows Vista hit this 100 million number on time. It reported the number in January 2008. The company went on to claim 180 million units had shipped six months later in June, the end of Microsoft's fiscal year.
This time, on Windows 7, Microsoft and IDC have changed the benchmark for measuring uptake - from the relatively easy measure of a year to the catchy, but awkward, "end of 2010." Windows 7 is due on October 22.
That will make it difficult to directly compare how Windows 7 is performing next to Windows Vista.
Dissecting the 177 million number, it seems IDC expects Microsoft can nearly double the unit shipments of Windows 7 over a slightly longer time frame than they gave Windows Vista.
It's that "slightly longer" bit that's important.
The duo have carefully given Windows 7 the benefit of an additional three months to hit projected sales targets so that Microsoft can claim - later - that Windows 7 hit targets.
These three months are an important three months, because they encompass the busy holiday shopping periods of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
With a launch of October 2009 and by factoring in the "end of 2010", IDC and Microsoft are going for double bubble with two bursts of Thankgiving and Christmas shopping activity in 2009 and 2010 to help boost the numbers on Windows 7 unit shipments and hit the new target.
Why shift the benchmarks and make comparisons with Windows Vista hard? The stakes are higher thanks to the debacle of selling Windows Vista and the growing mantra inside Microsoft and the industry than Windows 7 is "better."
Clearly, direct comparisons with Windows Vista would not be welcomed, so a different benchmark makes comparisons harder.
The extended benchmark also indicates Microsoft hopes the additional three months of the 2010 holiday shopping season can boost the all-important numbers. It took six months for Windows Vista to add another 80 million units to the magic 100 million number.
It looks like Microsoft will hope for better overall sales with the boost of holiday season 2009 and 2010 to work their sales magic.
For partners, meanwhile, it looks like they will earn exactly the same on Windows 7 as they got on Windows Vista. IDC said every $1 Microsoft earns on Windows 7 will equate to $18.50 for the ecosystem. That compares to $18 for the ecosystem on every $1 that went to Microsoft on Windows Vista, in IDC's report that came out on that operating system in 2006.
According to IDC, each $1 spent on Windows 7 will yield $10.21 in hardware sales, $4.43 in software sold, and $3.88 in services revenue.
Clearly, Microsoft and IDC are banking on an uptick in the health of the overall PC market, which has been suffering so much it spanked Microsoft's core client business and pushed Microsoft to report two unprecedented quarterly drops in corporate revenue. ®
COMMENTS
@AC 15th August 2009 08:59
We have IMAP service turned on our exchange server.
I use evolution for calendaring and thunderbird for mail on linux.
On Mac I use mail - once you have gotten used to mail on mac, you have a hard time opening Outlook again, my nerves could not stand it anymore.
Archiving hard in thunderbird? You must be kidding? No, it is easier than Outlook, honest .... open thunderbird, look to the left, down below, can you c "Local Folders" ? Now, move your mail there for offline usage .... easy? now, create a rule to do just that ... cool, right?
But ...
I still don't know what Windows 7 will do for us that XP couldn't. Or, why didn't Microsoft throw Vista in the garbage can, and ship (say) "XP reloaded"? By all means, replace its kernel, if they can do a better job starting afresh. But keep the user interfaces we are familiar with, so there isn't a massive hidden cost while everyone gets used to the gratuitous rearrangement of all that we had got used to.
As for that bug that was latent in the Linux kernel for eight years: almost as soon as it was spotted, a fix was available. Most major Linux suppliers patched their currently-supported distros within weeks if not days. Any that don't(?), you have several alternatives to choose from. Contrast this with that bug in Windows that Microsoft recently fixed after about two years of ignoring it, and only because the black hats had started exploiting it. Ask yourself, how sure are you that there aren't any eight-year-old latent bugs as yet undiscovered in XP? And more importantly, if or when they are discovered, are you confident that they will be fixed within days? And even more importantly, what are your alternatives?
And most importantly, ask yourself who has most to gain from the discovery of such bugs after XP is no longer a supported operating system?
It always makes me giggle...
Ain't this just dandy, eh? All these people shouting at each other.
Of course, what it comes down to is just what the bods in business think, particularly SMB's, who will be the corps of tomorrow. And I think there is a significant changing of attitude from "oh, just buy WinX, it's easier". Many have been stung before and now require more justification for any decisions they make. Remember these are the people building their frameworks now, with little worries about legacy apps.
I've said it before: Vista: I used 2008-2009 - had to replace with Ubuntu, before my business went to the wall with the decrease in productivity and the prospect of having to replace thousands of pounds worth of apps. Before anyone starts yabbering about tweaking and optimising, I'm not an OS-tard. The OS is there to do a job, and it should do it straight away wothout any interference. Like, ooo... Ubuntu does!
One time when I had a hardware problem I had to rebuild (Ubuntu) and get working again. I lost about 1 1/2 hours work time doing it (including Application installs, drivers and updates). I have never rebuilt a Win machine from scratch in that time.
BTW, what's recompiling a kernel? Must be easy, I never even noticed myself doing it. Or am I just just so-o-o f*cking good I didn't know it myself...?
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
