Vista: 'Most significant,' but anti-climactic

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer finally announced the business availability of Vista and the company calls it the "most significant" release in its history.

Significant? Yes. Anti-climactic? Definitely. Maybe it's the real-time nature of the Vista development and the play by play of every beta release, but it's hard to get too wound up after watching this OS inch ahead for years to the finish line.

The real fun begins now. The launch only marks the beginning. While the launch makes the headlines the real news will occur over the next year.

--How soon will Vista be adopted in the enterprise?

--What applications will work with it by early 2007?

--Will enterprise customers choose to adopt Vista, Office and Exchange together? Is there a real ROI in that approach?

--Could Vista spark better enterprise technology spending?

--And what happens when the first big enterprise customer gets dinged by Microsoft's anti-piracy protections?

Microsoft noted a Capgemini study (commissioned by Microsoft) found early adopters will expect "dramatic gains in productivity." Over the next year that--and those aforementioned questions--will be quantified.