Vista, Office & Exchange: critical to economic prosperity

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 30 November 2006 16:02

Opinion and Analysis

When Microsoft Australia MD Steve Vamos opened the press conference for the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 he didn't talk about Microsoft's software, he talked about service industries' growing contribution to the Australian economy.

He talked about the growing economic powerhouses of India and China, about the changing demographics of the Australian workforce as the average age of the population increases, about Australia's below average ranking on a global productivity index and about the increasing percentage of market value of large corporations that cannot be accounted for in tangible assets (from 20 percent in 1980 to 75 percent today.

After the demonstrations, the case studies and the Q&A sessions with early adopters Vamos' last words as he closed the conference were something like "We believe our software is now part of critical infrastructure"

Critical infrastructure? That's a bit rich isn't it? We're talking roads, railways, ports, airports, power, water sewerage telecommunications here: those systems without which society as we know it could not function.

Well, he does have a point. Such is the pervasiveness of Microsoft software throughout all levels of business and government that were every copy of Windows to cease functioning tomorrow, chaos would ensue.