Anilrgowda

Last week, Microsoft Corp. marketers and sales reps descended on Chicago to talk up the company's new product and boast about how the Vista operating system's huge "footprint" is about to stomp on Illinois.

As you ponder the vicissitudes of a Vista upgrade or whether to wait and buy a new machine, Microsoft counts its money and predicts by the end of this year that Vista's slick, translucent icons will be cascading on no fewer than 1.7 million computers in Illinois.

Their message was that Microsoft will become bigger here and even bigger in California (5 million Vista machines), New York (3.5 million) and probably in Texas, where the count hasn't been released.

It was a Big Picture sales pitch made largely to big-time customers at McCormick Place. The experts deflected questions about everyday consumer concerns to focus on how Windows creates an "ecosystem" in which a state's business community upgrades to new operating systems with the attendant need to hire people to install and maintain it.

Propeller head I am, even I found some of the fandangos with numbers dull but important (DBI in journalist jargon). Common sense tells us it's important, so consider the following.

But, please, don't go away.

"In 2007 as many as 7,000 IT (information technology) companies in Illinois will produce, sell or distribute products or services running on Windows Vista and employ more than 25,000 people. Another 53,000 or more people will be employed at IT-using firms installing, servicing, and supporting Windows Vista or designing, installing, servicing and supporting software that works with Windows Vista."

"For every dollar of Microsoft revenue from Windows Vista in 2007 in Illinois, the ecosystem beyond Microsoft will reap more than $18 in revenues. In 2007, this ecosystem should sell more than $3 billion in products and services revolving around Windows Vista."

I lifted those quotes from a Microsoft-commissioned study by the tech analysts at IDC, an outfit whose tracking of computer and software sales is an industry standard.



System's ease may crimp fees

As a hands-on guy with a couple of Vista computers at my house, I asked if those big IDC figures included the people at Microsoft who will be charging up to $79 per support case for Vista instead of the already steep $35 for Windows XP.

The response was no; whatever the take in Illinois, it will have to be added on afterward.

I refrained from asking if going from $35 to $79 in support fees meant that fixing Vista problems was twice as tough as fixing XP glitches.

If I were entrusted to make predictions, which I should not be, I forecast that support incidents will drop off because Vista and its companion newcomer, Office 2007, are easier to use than earlier versions.

Hence, I think all the money Microsoft spent on retina cameras to track eye movements in focus groups and other shakedowns over a staggering five years since XP, paid off in a fun-to-use OS that is safe. One superb new tool lets users keyword search all the files on their machines.

So count me among the cheerleaders, like the Chicago area's biggest computer gear seller, CDW Corp.

Liz Eversoll, director of Microsoft practice for CDW's newly acquired Berbee Information Networks, said CDW, which started in the back seat of founder Michael Krasny's automobile and exploded into today's $6.8 billion giant, stands to gain major new business and hire many more people.

Typical of the pattern that IDC predicted, CDW's new hires will fan out to sell, install and maintain everything from mouse pads to monster data storage racks for businesses upgrading to Vista.

Eversoll said that the bulk of these newcomers have spent the last couple of months learning the ins and outs of business-strength Vista at the company's training center for tech support gurus, informally called CDW University.

Because of Vista, "I'm planning to hire 60 new IT people," said Todd Kimble, chief information officer at Arthur J. Gallagher Brokerage & Risk Management Services.



Closer together while far away

Joe Mendel, a general manager for Avanade, a consulting firm specializing in Microsoft programs, also cited the new networking power Vista brings.

One feature allows companies to set up instant virtual meetings where everybody appears on a video screen in their own office and uses the collaboration tools in Vista to do things like write programs and compose policy documents.

Ordinary consumers can get a taste of this feature by using the beta versions of Windows Messenger built into Vista.

But the big development with the Vista/Office 2007 scheme is the system created by Ray Ozzie, the inventor of Lotus Notes, that handles the plumbing for this conferencing where a virtual roomful of people collaborate on the same document in real time.

I will end this with the observation that when the huge Microsoft Corp. talks about putting its footprint on my home state, all I can think of is Monty Python.


Source:Pitches for Vista focus on vitality | Chicago Tribune