News
IDC: 90M Copies of Vista in 2007
- By Stuart J. Johnston
- December 11, 2006
Microsoft will sell 90 million copies of Windows Vista in calendar 2007 – 35 million of those in the U.S. alone – according to a new economic study by IDC.
While the study, which was sponsored by Microsoft, predicts that the company will be a huge winner, with sales in 2007 bringing in $4 billion, it also bodes well for the IT economy in general.
“For every dollar of Microsoft revenue from Windows Vista in 2007 in the U.S., the ecosystem beyond Microsoft will reap $18 in revenues. In 2007 this ecosystem should sell about $70 billion in products and services revolving around Windows Vista,” the study said.
The reason? “Software is...more complex to sell, service and support than hardware...so software generates more downstream economic activity than hardware.”
Indeed, while packaged software accounts for 27 percent of IT spending in the U.S., it drives 65 percent -- nearly two-thirds -- of IT employment. IDC expects that to translate into a total of 6.7 million software-related US IT jobs in 2007. The report foresees 1.8 million US IT jobs in 2007 related to Vista deployments.
In fact, Vista will drive a substantial amount of the 5 percent annual growth expected in IT budgets between 2007 and 2010, the researcher found.
In 2008, for instance, IDC predicts that 80 percent of Microsoft client operating systems shipped into enterprises will be Windows Vista.
The net from IDC's report is that in 2007 alone Vista will result in 157,000 new jobs and $70 billion in revenues to companies in the U.S. IT Industry
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.