New York – Acrobatics, music and plenty of hype accompanied Microsoft Corp.’s long-delayed debut of its Windows Vista operating system.
Hours before the software went on sale in New York, dancers clad in Microsoft colors dangled from ropes high above street level and unfurled flags to form the red, green, blue and yellow Windows logo against a building wall. At a swank midtown eatery, speakers pumped out a hit from Snoop Dogg before Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive officer, took the stage.
“Vista is the center, the launching point for the next generation of connected entertainment in the home,” Ball mer said.
Vista was set to go on sale around the globe today, along with new versions of Microsoft Exchange e-mail software and the flagship Office business suite, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Several retailers had scheduled midnight openings.
But unlike the recent launches of next-generation game machines like Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3, customers haven’t been camping out for days.
“When I look at Windows Vista, I see a technology that is interesting, that is relevant, but to some extent is evolutionary,” said Al Gillen, an analyst at the technology research group IDC. “I do not believe it will create a lot of motivation for people to rush out and get a new operating system.”
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said the company actually wasn’t pushing midnight sales events – after all, the software will be available as a download over the Web for the first time. Even that route will be rarely taken. Ballmer acknowledged that, as with other operating system upgrades, most consumers will switch to Vista only when they buy new computers.
More than five years in the making, Vista was released for businesses Nov. 30, but the unveiling for consumers of the latest edition of Windows – which runs more than 90 percent of the world’s PCs – comes today. Vista retails for $100 to $400, depending on the version and whether the user is upgrading from Windows XP.
