Vista to do little for 2007 PC sales
Microsoft's long-awaited opearting system will not have a wide-ranging impact on PC sales
Microsoft’s Vista operating system (OS) is expected to have a limited impact on PC sales this year, Gartner has claimed.
The analyst has predicted a 10.5 per cent increase in PC shipments to 255.7 million units for 2007, with revenues rising by a less healthy 4.5 per cent to $213.7m. But Gartner said Vista will have little to do with this growth.
Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner’s client computing markets group, said: “While Vista includes a number of interesting features, these features don’t have enough ‘must have’ appeal with the average home and SME user to spark a significant rush of new PC sales.”
Gartner said that Vista adoption in larger businesses will lag behind SMEs and consumers because most IT managers will wait until the new OS has been tested and validated for use with existing applications.
However, while Gartner admitted that Vista will initially sell to a small number of SMEs and consumers, the analyst predicts that sales will really start to take off from 2008. Ironically, part of that success will be down to the inability of customers to find new systems running Windows XP.
Annette Jump, research director at Gartner’s client computing markets group, said: “Consumers and SMEs in mature markets will be hard-pressed to find a new PC with Windows XP. This will naturally speed Vista’s adoption among consumers and SMEs.
“Windows Vista Home Premium is priced higher than Windows XP Home, so Microsoft could enjoy stong results from Vista if large numbers of consumers opt for the premium edition. PC vendors could also benefit if they can pass this cost increase on to consumers in the form of higher PC prices.”
Meanwhile, security specialist Symantec has given Vista a favourable security rating for its first few months in use.
Jeff Jones, strategy director for Microsoft’s security technology unit at Symantec, compared Vista’s first 90 days with that of Windows XP and other OSs launched in recent years.
“The results of the analysis show that Windows Vista has an improved security vulnerability profile over its predecessor and a significantly better profile relative to comparable modern competitive OSs,” Jones said.