Wall Street Predicting Big Sales for Vista

The Microsoft Windows Vista hoopla has been fairly cool and collected in many circles, including the realm of home consumers.

And yet, many aren't yet convinced the new operating system has anything they absolutely must install on their computers. The perception is that Vista lacks enough killer apps to win over PC owners like Windows 95, although industry predictions appear very confident this will change. In fact, Wall Street has been so aggressive in forecasting Vista's growth that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently pleaded that they scale back on the super sales prophecies.

The problem Ballmer finds with such extravagant predictions is that they're simply unrealistic. He recently made the remarks at a meeting with Wall Street analysts, telling them, "There's a disconnect between what people think is the growth of the PC market and Vista's growth".

In order to make both more realistic, Ballmer suggests PC market predictions rise so that Vista's place within will appear more logical. In fact, Ballmer assured listeners that Vista isn't meant to vastly intensify profits, but to "sustain the Windows growth that Microsoft already had." (Source: zdnet.com)

Ballmer stopped short of completely dismissing Wall Street's sales excitement, however. He did state that "PC growth will be buoyed by Vista", indicating that Microsoft truly do expect the operating system to become a market cornerstone. With that said, Ballmer saw no reason to predict year-over-year doubling in PC growth, regardless of Vista's impact. (Source: iht.com)

Given the promise of future updates and improvements to Vista, Ballmer may be right in predicting a slow and steady escalation of consumer interest in the new operating system.