Vista boosting PC sales? No sir

Stan Beer
Thursday, 24 May 2007 08:15

Opinion and Analysis

I walked into my local white box store the other day to price a new system. Not including the monitor, I could pick up a new Core 2 Duo box with 2GB RAM, 160GB IDE drive, DVD burner, integrated sound card with speaker system including 500W subwoofer, PS/2 keyboard and optical mouse, LAN network card, plus OEM Windows XP Media Center for a grand total of AUD$720. The same system with Vista Home Premium would have cost the same. Which did I buy?

I chose the system with Windows XP Media Center. Why? Because, I suspect like many other would be purchasers, I wanted a system that I know will work with all my applications and my network and my peripherals. I don't care about pretty transparent windows marching across my screen. I want a system that just works. Even if I do have to reboot the damn thing every other day, at least it's not going to blue screen on me too often. I also want a system that performs well without requiring me to soup it up to the eyeballs with stacks of extra memory, an external graphics card and a processor cranked up to lightning clock speeds.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise to read the recent report from research firm In-Stat that Vista is not expected to boost PC sales significantly. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say it won't boost PC sales at all. People will continue to buy PCs with or without Vista on them.

As for Vista sales, anecdotal evidence gleaned from discussions with PC retailers and small business systems integrators suggests that had Vista not been released and pre-installed on PCs, Microsoft would probably have sold just as many copies of XP.

A walk through my local Office Works retail store, reveals almost an equal number of name brand PCs on shelves with XP and Vista. There are no queues of wild eyed youngsters and enthusiasts lining up to check out the Vista boxes. Boxed copies of Vista upgrades are not disappearing off shelves at any accelerated rate. Vista is selling along with PCs just like XP did and still does.

In the business world, however, the story is entirely different. Stories of corporate upgrades to Vista are few and far between. In fact, some corporations are only just completing upgrades to XP. My gut as well as discussions with a number of business IT execs tells me that not many sane MIS managers are going to embark on an expensive risky upgrade to a new immature and largely real world untested operating system.

Bill Gates can crow about 40 million Vista units sold to date but the big question is who's buying them? The short answer is mostly PC makers. If PC sales are good, Vista sales will be good. If PC sales slump, so will Vista sales. Do people walk into stores to buy Vista or a PC? The answer is obvious. Vista boosting PC sales? No sir, quite the opposite is true.