Microsoft hopes Vista is the gift that keeps on giving

Since Microsoft missed the back to school and holiday season last year, it is hoping those two events have driven up Vista sales, this year as it would mark the first year that Vista was available during back to school and will be available for the holidays.

Eweek says that retailers and Microsoft are hoping for increases in sales of both hardware running Vista and the operating system itself.

The company claims demand for Vista is strong but with 67% of people still wanting XP (or another operating system) you have to wonder where Microsoft gets its information and where third parties get their’s.

Best Buy went so far as to say that having Geek Squad “agents” in their stores is an aid to customers by helping them “find and customize the many features in Vista, which addresses many of their concerns before they even buy their machine.”  (I’ll leave the Geek Squad argument for another day).

In the end Microsoft is hoping that Vista is a gift to the masses that puts money in its already overstuffed pockets.

• Microsoft hoped SP1 would help IT Vista deployment, it didn’t
• Symantec wishes Microsoft would get its act together with Vista
• Windows 7 may be ready for back to school
• Vista does not go over well in China, blame the pirates
• Windows 7 beats Vista in first week sales by 234% – Windows PCs also up 49%