From: "John Beamish" 

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8550569

Microsoft
Peaks, valleys and vistas

Jan 18th 2007
 From The Economist print edition
The launch of a new version of Microsoft Windows, called Vista, is not
quite the event it used to be. Has the software giant reached the pinnacle
of its power?

[snip]

These changes are bad for Microsoft. Vista is being released with Office
2007, an update to its universally employed suite of word-processing,
spreadsheet and other applications. Windows and Office are the backbone of
the company. They represent nearly 60% of sales and 80-90% of its profits,
estimates Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm. Close to 1
billion PCs are now in use and because Windows and Office sit on nearly all
of them, the programs are the inescapable tithe on belonging to the
information society.

The question for Microsoft is whether it can continue to collect these
dues. Vista took five years and $6 billion to develop. Some 8,000 people
worked on it. Yet it is two years late. A corporate version was released in
Novemberƒ ”just before the holidays when few firms would install it. This
gave Microsoft the chance to complete small bits of ancillary code to make
it run smoothly. Most users are expected not to bother upgrading (see
article), but to acquire Vista only when they buy a new computer. With
hindsight, the release of Vista may mark the moment when Microsoft's
Windows and Office are seen as having reached the zenith of their
supremacy.

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