100 million copies sold, but Vista mostly absent at CES

Ahead of Bill Gates' keynote Sunday night, Microsoft said that 100 million copies of Vista have been sold, but the new OS has little presence here at CES.

In a meeting with BetaNews Monday, Aaron Coldiron, senior marketing manager for Windows Vista, acknowledged that Microsoft has done little to offer a compelling story for its flagship operating system, but promised changes were afoot.

While Vista has been available to the public for nearly a year, many consumers haven't been eager to make the upgrade. Initial driver and application compatibility problems plagued early adopters, and Windows XP is still seen as "good enough" for a large percentage of users.

Coldiron said Microsoft has focused largely on niche marketing thus far -- for example pitching Vista to those in the process of buying a computer -- but hasn't directed much at the general public. This has enabled Apple to dominate consumer mindshare even though Windows still dominates actual market share.

Microsoft does have a handful of Vista banners and ads around CES announcing the company's new "Digital Life" campaign, but it's bland and a far cry from the presence of other companies. Granted, Vista isn't necessarily a consumer electronics product, but Windows does have a place in many CE devices and the audience is the same.

Coldiron didn't specify whether Microsoft planned television ads or any big new marketing campaigns, but said 2008 would bring a renewed focus on selling the benefits of Vista when paired with Windows Live. At the show, Microsoft is demonstrating using Vista with Windows Live Gallery and Spaces, along with the new Windows Live Mail client.

"Bill Gates talked about the magic of software, and watching the software and services work together really is like magic," Coldiron said. Now, Microsoft just needs to deliver that message to the general public and bring back the "cool" to Windows. It has slowly begun this effort with a number of viral YouTube videos on Vista.

Although many customers may be waiting on Service Pack 1 to bring much-needed improvements to Vista's performance and reliability, Coldiron said that because of the way Microsoft now rolls out updates, Vista users will see those updates well before SP1 arrives.