Vista delay leads to IDC cutting PC sales view

Software giants Microsoft has not released a mainstream operating system for desktop computer for like 5 years now. And the company has already announced another delay in the launch of their upcoming Windows Vista operating system. It is now scheduled for launch in January next year.

This has led to a stage where market researcher IDC had announced that they are cutting their forecast for 2006 U.S. personal computer sales by 2 percent. The updated figures cites the group estimating that PC manufacturers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway and Lenovo would sell around 68.2 million PCs in the United States this year.

The earlier estimated figures were closer to around 69.5 million units. The market had seen sales of around 63.9 million in 2005. However, with Vista launching in January next year, the sales are expected to pick up by quite a bit in 2007 and it should be an exciting year for the PC industry.

IDC analyst Loren Loverde said in a statement on this analysis: “The timing of the release will have some impact on when consumers buy, but not so much on whether or not they buy.”