Microsoft's fiercest Vista competitors are not Mac OS X or the open-source Linux operating system. The biggest competitors Vista faces are older versions of Windows.
Microsoft is counting on a few factors aside from Vista itself to drive sales. The software giant is in the midst of a major anti-piracy crackdown. That initiative requires users to prove they are running legal copies of Windows, via a Web-authentication mechanism, before they are allowed to download utilities and other Windows-specific content from Microsoft's Web site. Those running pirated copies will be encouraged to upgrade to the latest version of Windows.
Details
Windows Vista home page
Windows Live beta
Mary Jo Foley's Microsoft Watch blog
Previous Microsoft coverage
in Seattle Weekly
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At the same time, Microsoft is looking to new markets it has yet to tap for future Windows sales. Emerging PC markets outside the U.S. are growing at a rapid clip and will be another area for Microsoft to plumb for Vista sales. The company is looking beyond the Windows XP Starter Edition—a cut-rate, stripped-down version of Windows sold in developing countries—to attracting affluent customers in emerging markets.
To keep the Windows coffers full, Microsoft also is going to put a lot of energy into convincing customers who do buy the new operating system that there is more value in higher-end versions of Vista than in the basic editions. As with Windows XP, there will be six versions of Vista: Business, Enterprise, Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Windows Vista Starter.
Will users deem Vista and Windows Live products ahead of their time, improvements that can wait? Or will they snap up the software-services combo as soon as it becomes available? The answer is six months or so away.
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Mary Jo Foley writes the Microsoft Watch blog (www.microsoft-watch.com) and newsletter for Ziff Davis Media (www.ziffdavis.com) in New York. She has been a tech journalist for 23 years and interviewed Bill Gates for the first time in 1984, when Microsoft was micro-sized. Foley has dedicated her career to covering Microsoft for a variety of publications and Web sites, including ZDNet/CNet on the Web, the corporate computing magazine eWeek, and others. She moved to Seattle in 1993 to better stalk the company, but after a particularly rainy year, she decided in 1998 to move back to the East Coast.
