Sitting alongside executives from some of Microsoft’s biggest partners, including Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell, Balmmer stated that there is a great deal of room for PC innovation, and that Microsoft intends to continue. improving the user interface, security and multimedia in Vista.
According to his statements, “We have a long list of what our engineers want to do, and a long list of what other companies want us to do. There are many areas in which we need to innovate.”
However, Ballmer has been reluctant to comment on what will come after Vista, avoiding questions about when users will see the first Vista service pack. “We will post one if necessary.”
While there is extensive media and analyst coverage indicating that many users plan to take a wait-and-see stance when it comes to adopting Vista, Ballmer was more optimistic. He has predicted that Vista will be adopted over the next three months at a rate five times faster than Windows 95, and twice as fast compared to Windows XP.
Ballmer cautioned that he expects most Vista drives to ship pre-installed on top of the hardware, while the OS package sales will be considerably lower.
According to his statements, “the bulk of the units will be supplied with the new computers.” To emphasize how important hardware partners are to Vista’s sales, Ballmer shared the stage with some of the most representative executives from its major hardware partners.
Joining Ballmer were Kevin Rollins, Dell president and CEO; Sean Maloney, Intel Executive Vice President; Hisatsugu Nonaka, President and CEO of Personal Computer and Network Co, Toshiba; Hector Ruiz, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD); and Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP.
