After all the hype surrounding its January launch, Microsoft"s new Vista operating system has yet to brighten the outlook for PC makers and could even lead to oversupplies for those who had built up inventory.Top PC makers, such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, may now have to resort to sales of lower-margin computers in emerging markets such as China, Eastern Europe and Latin America for their growth this year. Featuring high-definition video and audio functions and three-dimensional graphics, Vista is being billed as a major upgrade of its predecessor, Windows XP.
But the software, which runs on more memory and superior graphic cards, has not taken off as fast as some had hoped, leading to concerns of potential inventory woes for makers of those products, analysts and industry players said. "Vista has had no big help," said Acer"s president Gianfranco Lanci, adding that PC makers are really not counting on Vista to drive high demands for the industry.