Ballmer: Vista won't be last client OS from Microsoft

IDG News Service - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Monday moved to end rumors that Vista will be the last Windows client operating system, claiming that Microsoft has "plenty more where that came from" at a press event in New York to mark the consumer launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007.

Sitting alongside executives from some of Microsoft's most important partners -- including Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. -- Ballmer said there is plenty of room for innovation on the PC, and Microsoft plans to continue to build upon the user-interface, security and multimedia enhancements in Vista.

"We've got a very long list of stuff our engineers want to do, a long list of stuff all of the companies here want us to do," he said. "There are so many areas where we need innovation."

However, Ballmer was hesitant to talk much about what comes after Vista, dodging a question about if and when customers will see the first service pack for Vista. "We'll put one out if we need to," he said.

Ballmer was his usual boisterous self on the eve of Tuesday's consumer launch of Vista and Office 2007 -- the first time Microsoft's two most important software products have been released together in 12 years. Still, there was a subdued air in the room at Cipriani, a Manhattan restaurant where press and analysts gathered for the first of two Vista events in New York.

Five years in the making and plagued by several delays, Vista has been a constant subject of scrutiny for some time, making Tuesday's release an anticlimax.

Though there has been widespread analysis and press coverage claiming that many customers plan to take a wait-and-see approach to adopting Vista, Ballmer was more optimistic. He predicted that Vista would be adopted five times faster than Windows 95 and twice as fast as Windows XP in the next three months. And he said there's a "huge" opportunity for partners to drive value for customers with Vista.

Ballmer said he expects most of the units of Vista that ship to be preinstalled on hardware.

"The bulk of the units will wind up going out with new computers," he said. To emphasize the importance of hardware partners in Vista sales, Ballmer shared the stage with notable executives from its key hardware partners.

Joining him were Kevin Rollins, president and CEO of Dell; Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel; Hisatsugu Nonaka, president and CEO of the Personal Computer and Network Co., Toshiba Corp.; Hector Ruiz, chairman and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.; and Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group.