Microsoft Vista

(Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates (R) listens as Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie talks about industry cooperation during their keynote address at the RSA Conference 2007 in San Francisco, February 6, 2007).

Microsoft's new OS Vista spurs computer sales

US sales of computers carrying Microsoft's new operating system Vista soared in the week after it was launched, defying the expectations of analysts who gave Vista lackluster reviews.

"I didn't expect to see such aggressive growth right off the line," Current Analysis research director Samuel Belafonte told AFP. "If you are Microsoft, you have to be pleased with these results."

Adding to the achievement was the fact that computer sales are usually sluggish during the end of January and the beginning of February.

"This bodes well for Vista," Belafonte said, cautioning that a more reliable picture would be shown by PC sales figures in the coming six months.

As Microsoft executives predicted, the majority of people opting for Vista bought the higher-priced Home Premium version and only 22 percent went for the more economical, scaled-down Basic edition.

Microsoft spent five years and six billion dollars creating Vista as the successor to its Windows XP operating system.

The Redmond, Washington, software powerhouse has touted Vista worldwide as its most secure and thoroughly-tested operating system release.

Critics maintain that Vista's complexity forces aspiring users to upgrade computers to meet memory and graphics demands. Computer game developers have complained Vista's security features can block or break their software.

Longtime Microsoft followers advised people to put off upgrading to Vista until flaws and kinks are exposed and fixed, as has been the historical pattern with the company's previous operating systems.

Approximately 95 percent of the 900 million computers in the world run on Windows operating systems - AFP.