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Microsoft aims to bridge gap to Longhorn release
Seattle, May 08: Facing its longest-ever lag between major Windows releases, Microsoft Corp. promised this week to make its current operating system more secure and compatible with powerful personal computers to spur new sales of Windows XP.
Seattle, May 08: Facing its longest-ever lag between major Windows releases, Microsoft Corp. promised this week to make its current operating system more secure and compatible with powerful personal computers to spur new sales of Windows XP.
At Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, or WinHEC, Chairman Bill Gates talked about Windows XP as a more integral part of home entertainment, improvements to its computer security and support for 64-bit computing, the next wave in microprocessor hardware. Most machines running XP -- Microsoft's two-and-a-half-year-old flagship product -- now run on less powerful 32-bit microprocessors.
Longhorn -- the code name for the next version of Windows and Microsoft's next big bet -- was a key part of the conference. But executives appeared more determined to boost sales of Windows XP. "WinHEC was not about creating excitement about Longhorn," said Rob Helm, analyst at independent researcher Direction on Microsoft. "I think existing XP sales is the main priority."
Microsoft is expecting overall sales growth to slow further in its upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July, as it pushes back releases of key software, including the next version of its corporate database software, code-named Yukon.
Microsoft is predicting that sales in the current fiscal year will grow 13.5 percent to $36.5 billion, but that growth will slow to as little as 3.4 percent in fiscal 2005.
Analysts note that Microsoft has traditionally been conservative in its estimates, but they are also predicting, on average, modest revenue growth in the year to June 2005 to $38.6 billion, only slightly above Microsoft's upper estimate of $38.2 billion, according to forecasts compiled by Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc. Bureau Report
At Microsoft's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, or WinHEC, Chairman Bill Gates talked about Windows XP as a more integral part of home entertainment, improvements to its computer security and support for 64-bit computing, the next wave in microprocessor hardware. Most machines running XP -- Microsoft's two-and-a-half-year-old flagship product -- now run on less powerful 32-bit microprocessors.
Longhorn -- the code name for the next version of Windows and Microsoft's next big bet -- was a key part of the conference. But executives appeared more determined to boost sales of Windows XP. "WinHEC was not about creating excitement about Longhorn," said Rob Helm, analyst at independent researcher Direction on Microsoft. "I think existing XP sales is the main priority."
Microsoft is expecting overall sales growth to slow further in its upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July, as it pushes back releases of key software, including the next version of its corporate database software, code-named Yukon.
Microsoft is predicting that sales in the current fiscal year will grow 13.5 percent to $36.5 billion, but that growth will slow to as little as 3.4 percent in fiscal 2005.
Analysts note that Microsoft has traditionally been conservative in its estimates, but they are also predicting, on average, modest revenue growth in the year to June 2005 to $38.6 billion, only slightly above Microsoft's upper estimate of $38.2 billion, according to forecasts compiled by Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc. Bureau Report