Acer: PC industry is 'disappointed' with Windows Vista OS

By Stevie Smith Jul 25, 2007, 15:29 GMT

It may have arrived some five years after the release of Windows XP, but all that extra development time certainly didn’t guarantee Windows Vista a place in the annuls of operating system history. In fact, if Acer president Gianfranco Lanci is to be believed, Vista has left the PC industry distinctly unimpressed.

More pointedly, while speaking with the Financial Times Deutschland, the Acer boss emerged as the first significant PC industry figurehead to openly criticise American software giant Microsoft regarding its long-awaited Vista OS.

Attacking with all guns blazing, Lanci chided Vista for completely failing to offer general consumers and enterprise users any clear motivation in terms of buying a new, Vista-equipped computer system. He also went on to label Vista as being plagued by problems, citing that its "stability is certainly a problem," before announcing that: "The whole industry is disappointed with Vista."

In terms of overall consumer performance since its much-hyped launch on January 30 of this year, Lanci points out that Vista has subsequently registered the weakest PC market impact of any Windows operating system. He also points out that several of Acer’s business customers have notably leant away from Vista, asking for Windows XP to be installed on their new hardware instead.

Taiwanese computer giant Acer is ranked as the industry’s fourth biggest PC manufacturer after the likes of market leader Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Lenovo.

Acer shipped some 14 million personal computers in 2006, which is an improvement of 39 over 2005’s figures. However, it has recently cut its 2007 shipment growth expectations due to weaker-than-expected attraction to Windows Vista.

Despite the hard-hitting comments emanating from Lanci, Microsoft has held Vista aloft as a resounding success, claiming to have sold some 20 million Vista licenses by as early as March. The Redmond-based software powerhouse has also recently revealed that the popularity of Vista has contributed to quarterly income having risen by 13 percent when measured year-on-year against 2006’s numbers.

However, it is worth noting that Microsoft has conceded that it expects Windows XP to make up around 22 percent of sales in the new fiscal year, which is an increase of 7 percent over its initial performance forecast. Vista, while filling the remaining 78 percent of Microsoft’s projection, is perhaps taking a hit due to the financial attraction of cheaper, XP-equipped computer hardware on retail shelves when weighed against the upper-tier system requirements necessary to effectively run Vista.

Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions at Microsoft, has commented to PC World that rather than digging deep for a system advanced enough to run Vista, consumers are generally opting for cheaper hardware capable of functioning well with XP.

"With Vista's requirements, people may be thinking about sticking with XP, and putting less money into the hardware," offered Cherry. He also outlined that Microsoft might eventually be forced into pushing Vista to the forefront in consumers’ minds by, "limiting the availability of XP." And that’s one approach the software company has already begun to focus on following its April announcement that XP will not be available to resellers and retailers as of January 2008.