Vista to generate $9.5 B for NY/NJ businesses in 2007

Take this one with a grain of salt, folks. A Microsoft-sponsored study conducted by analyst group IDC claims that Windows Vista will generate $9.5 billion for businesses and industries in New York and New Jersey, through 2007--that's $7 billion in New York and $2.5 billion in Jersey. Additionally, IDC predicts that Vista will make its way on to 4.7 million PCs in the area (ambitious, but not impossible [1]) and will generate over 20,000 jobs. "Windows Vista's footprint in the state will be wide, as original equipment manufacturers sell PCs that run on it, software companies sell applications that run it, and services and distribution firms deliver, install, support and train on it," said John Gantz, chief research officer and senior vice president at IDC. "We expect that in the first year of Windows Vista shipments, this ecosystem will sell more than $7 billion of Windows Vista-related products and services in New York." Now that's all well and good for the NY/NJ economy but does this mean that you should deploy Vista right away? Not unless supporting local business is more important to you than the security of your business's data [2].

For more Vista predictions:
- see this Microsoft press release [3]