Microsoft's Clouds May Break If Vista Boots Up

"Over the next year, we'll start to see uptake" of Vista by corporations, Cherry says.

Turner said the company is reaping benefits from its investments in Vista's security features and stability. "Vista is the most secure operating system we've released," said Turner.

In the first 180 days, Vista experienced half the number of "high-severity vulnerabilities" found in the six months following XP's launch, Turner said. "Windows Vista's had far fewer [security vulnerabilities] than Apple or any major Linux distributor."

The increased reliability of the product has led to 21% fewer support calls per unit shipped than with XP, Turner said.

Still, Vista has taken it on the chin lately. Although consumers are opting for premium over basic versions of Vista, they've been critical of Microsoft for the lack of Vista software and driver support coming from designers of devices and software. And on July 23, Gianfranco Lanci, president of computer manufacturer Acer, was quoted by the Financial Times Deutschland as saying that the computer industry has been disappointed by Vista.

According to Turner, device and software makers are finally stepping up: Over 2,000 applications now work with Vista. "That's up from 650 at launch," he said. And 70 "critical applications" have been updated by partners to improve performance since the launch, he added.

Vista is now supported by over 2.1 million devices, compared to support for 1.5 million at launch. Turner said 98% of devices are Vista-ready, including 11,000 branded devices.