News
IDC: $70 Billion Channel Opportunity Around Vista
- By Scott Bekker
- December 12, 2006
Windows Vista will spawn more than $70 billion in revenues for Microsoft partners and 100,000 new jobs in the United States in 2007, according to a Microsoft-sponsored study done by IDC analysts.
"It's pretty significant because this is a third-party analysis that is pretty in-depth on the market opportunity and the spend and the economic impact around Vista," said Sherle Webb-Robins, general manager for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group.
Other IDC projections for 2007 contained in the study:
IDC expects Windows Vista to be installed on 90 million computers worldwide, and 35 million systems in the United States.
Every dollar spent on Vista will generate $18 in revenues beyond Microsoft in the partner ecosystem. The breakdown of those revenues is $9.75 for hardware, $4.60 on other software and $3.65 in services.
Microsoft partner investments to prepare and roll out their Vista-related products and services is about $10 billion.
There are about 200,000 IT companies in the United States that will derive revenues from Vista-related sales and services. According to Microsoft, there are 138,000 U.S.-based partners registered with its Microsoft Partner Program.
The $70 billion in Vista-related ecosystem spending will fit within $496 billion of total IT spending in the United States.
Webb-Robins says Microsoft has been driving partners to get ready for Vista for about a year and a half through such activities as the training of about 110,000 partners and working with more than 1,000 ISVs to get Vista applications ready.
Now that the enterprise launch has occurred and general availability is scheduled for Jan. 30, Webb-Robins recommended that all Microsoft partners take three basic steps. "Promote your solutions or services on the Microsoft Solution Finder. Get to the marketplace with the Ready to Go campaigns and events. Then we've got these big launch events across the United States, and others around the world," she said, adding that partners should encourage their customers to participate in the launch events.
The IDC study, a 14-page PDF document, is available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/itanalyst/docs/IDCVistaEcoImpactDec2006.pdf.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.