Vista to be plentiful next year

Microsoft has lofty ambitions for its next generation Windows Vista operating system as witnessed by statements made by the company in early October. Today, IDC issued some new projections for Windows Vista including the notion that over 90 million units of the operating system will ship in 2007 worldwide. That figure far outpaces Microsoft’s assessment of 67 million units in the first year of availability for Windows XP.

In addition to the figures above, this research group expects the highest-end version, Ultimate, to account for around 2% of total sold next year. It’s no surprise that it will be sold with pre-built machines, but I am curious how many enthusiasts will be quick to jump on the bandwagon.