Digital Disruption

The New York Times reports today on yesterday’s Microsoft Vista launch. According to Steve Ballmer, it’s “the biggest product launch in Microsoft’s history” and the rollout will be backed by a first-year marketing budget of hundreds of millions of dollars. Microsoft has 500,000 industry partners worldwide who have a vested interest and are obviously betting (praying?) that the Vista launch will be a success. “I hope your forecasts are right,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president for personal computers at Hewlett-Packard. “We’d all be thrilled.”

A Microsoft funded study by the IDC predicts that “this ecosystem should sell about $70 billion in products and services revolving around Windows Vista” in 2007. So, will the world upgrade to this latest version of the MS operating system? More than 90% of the world PC market already use the previous generations of software from Microsoft.

The key question is: “Why upgrade?”. According to Bill Gates, Vista is “easier to use”. Will this be enough of a reason?

If one looks at the launch photo above, one senses a surprising (and significant) lack of enthusiasm about this launch – look at the body language and facial expressions. Do you notice any smiles? Any enthusiasm? Any sparkle? It may be the biggest product launch in Microsoft’s history, but they don’t seem too excited about it.

We shall see.