Microsoft Unveils New Operating System: Vista
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
More than five years in the making, Vista, the new Windows operating system, debuts today for consumer buyers around the world.
When users boot up Vista for the first time, they’ll be wowed — a term borrowed from Microsoft’s marketing campaign — by the slick 3-D graphical user interface and document icons that give at-a-glance previews, Mr. Gates said. The next wow comes when they start using a system-wide search program that Microsoft’s engineers built into both the operating system and new versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and other Office 2007 elements, which also hit stores at midnight.
“When I look at Windows Vista, I see a technology that is interesting, that is relevant, but to some extent is evolutionary,” an analyst at the technology research group IDC, Al Gillen, said.
Mr. Gates argued that as the PC has morphed from a souped-up typewriter to a networked entertainment center, personal media library, and gateway to the Internet, the operating system itself has earned a higher profile.
“When people think about their PC, they think about Windows even more than who the manufacturer is. That determines how it looks, how you navigate, what the applications are that are available,” Gates said.
