Vista security usability to slow 2007 sales

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 09 May 2006 07:27

Your IT - Home IT

Microsoft shareholder's expectations of Vista giving the company a much needed boost to its bottom line may well have to wait a couple of years, according to a newly released report. The much awaited security improvements are expected to give users usability issues.

The report released by Yankee Group Security Solutions & Services program manager, Andrew Jaquith, predicts that the significant security improvements to Vista will cause end users headaches in the usability department. That combined, with the expense of upgrading, including the cost of security adds up to 2007 not being a great year for sales.

A problem for Microsoft is that Windows sales, which account for nearly half the company's profits, are slowing  and revenue only grew 7.6% for the first three quarters of 2006 compared to the corresponding period in 2005. Microsoft Office, the comopany's other big money eraner, is in a similar position. The company was counting on 2007, with the simultaneous release of Vista and Office, as being the year where the revenue and earnings would be given a much needed shot in the arm. However, Yankee Group believes that the software giant may need to wait an extra year or so for the benefits to flow through.

"As the first major update to the operating system in nearly 5 years, Microsoft Vista will improve security for its customers. However, the security improvements will disrupt the end users’ experience and cause independent software vendors short-term pain," a release based on the report states.

"Due to the usability challenges that customers will face with Vista, Yankee Group also finds that widespread adoption of the new operating system will be slower than Microsoft’s estimate of 400 million desktops in 24 months. In addition, Yankee Group expects that many customers will defer major upgrades because of the expense of upgrading end-user desktops, and because Microsoft will market security as a "feature" that users must pay for to obtain," according to the statement.

Microsoft's determination to make security a strong feature Vista, however, in the long run will be an irresistible lure for Windows users but will be bad news for the security software industry other than anti-virus vendors, according to Jaquith of Yankee Group.

"The aftermarkets for anti-spyware and desktop firewalls will experience the most dramatic decline. On the other hand, Vista will have little to no effect on the size of the corporate anti-virus segment, although Yankee Group expects that the market shares of existing competitors will decrease slightly following the introduction of Microsoft’s own anti-virus offerings. Deployment of Vista will also slightly decrease the need for third-party products for disk encryption, device control and certain host intrusion prevention software (HIPS)."