50,000 New Jobs in 2007: IDC Research Predicts Impact of Windows Vista on Europe’s IT Industry and Business Economy
New operating system will sustain more than 1,000,000 jobs, drive revenues of over €32 billion, and stimulate innovation, study of six key European markets says.
BRUSSELS, Belgium —14 Sept 2006 — At a briefing in Brussels, Belgium, Microsoft Corp and research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) today announced details of a study into the expected economic impact of Microsoft® Windows Vista™ in six key European markets — Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK.
IDC gave details of how the new Microsoft operating system will be a major driver of revenue and employment creation for more than 150,000 IT companies in the six countries, which collectively account for 65 per cent of IT spend in the European Economic Zone. According to IDC, the availability of Windows Vista will generate revenues of more than €32 billion for these companies in 2007. In addition, the new operating system will sustain and support over 1 million jobs — approximately 20 per cent of all IT employment in the six countries — and create an additional 50,000 new positions.
“Windows Vista will be an important launch for Microsoft,” said Marcel Warmerdam, research director, IDC European IT Markets, and co-author of the report. “But it will be an even more important launch for a much larger and more extensive community around the world. The launch of Windows Vista will have a pronounced positive impact on growth and innovation in local economies throughout Europe.”
According to the IDC report, which was commissioned by Microsoft, Windows Vista will be installed on more than 30 million computers in the six countries researched in its first year of availability, and 105 million worldwide. This installed base will provide a market for application developers, systems integrators and other companies that produce, sell or distribute products or services running on Windows Vista. IDC’s research predicts that for every euro of revenue Microsoft makes, companies within the IT ecosystem will, on average, will make over €13.
Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, said, “In the grand scheme of things, IDC forecasts that Windows Vista will account for only 1 per cent of the €214 billion the six countries in the study will spend on IT in 2007, and around 5 per cent of the packaged software spend. However, the economic opportunity Windows Vista creates for small and large companies across the region is clearly much more significant.”
The ripple effect of Windows Vista’s economic impact will spread beyond the IT industry. “Based on standard software and services industry ratios for spending on product development, marketing and training, Microsoft’s partners will be investing over €4.8 billion, between now and the end of 2007, in readying their products and services,” says IDC’s Marcel Warmerdam.
Stimulating innovation
Imasoft ApS is typical of many of the independent software vendors (ISVs) that help make up the 150,000 company strong IT ecosystem in the six countries researched by IDC. Based in Fakse, Denmark, the company employs five people. For the past four years its developers have been working on CrimeSceneNet — a product based on Windows Vista that will enable police and law-enforcement agencies to create panoramic, 3-D, digital representations of real crime scenes, enabling forensic and other evidence to be plotted accurately and investigation scenarios to be analysed.
“Windows Vista and has given us the opportunity to optimise our product in a way that meets the rigorous demands of our customers. We are able to develop better features in a tenth of the time it would have taken before. This means faster development and faster innovation, helping accelerate our time-to-market with a much stronger, more competitive product,” said Poul Bodeholt, co-founder of Imasoft. “In our principal markets, we expect revenues to increase by DDK100 million (€13.5 million) over the next five years with the new, Windows Vista-based solution.”
Seemage Inc, a French software developer based in Nice, develops solutions for the product design, engineering and technical illustration industries, and is also planning a version of its Seemage system, based on Windows Vista technology. “Our vision of 3-D product information being available ‘everyware’ will be taken to the next level with Windows Vista. We anticipate that, ultimately, most of our end users will view, manage, manipulate and leverage 3-D digital design data via via Seemage running on Windows Vista,” said Chris Williams, CEO of Seemage.
This study is the latest in a series of studies conducted by IDC since 2002 into the economic impact of IT, software, and the Microsoft ecosystem and partner community on local economies. A copy of the IDC report into The Economic Impact of Microsoft Windows Vista can be downloaded from http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/2/b/f2bcdab3-433b-4109-8d4e-410230c47c37/203326Euro.pdf.
ISV Partner Involvement
The following ISV companies are also participating in the event today:
• Imasoft. A Danish-owned and-operated company, Imasoft specialises in software and systems for police and intelligence agencies, and other customers within the field of law enforcement. http://uk.imasoft.dk
• Meta4. A Spanish company, Meta4’s human capital management (HCM) solutions maximise the potential of organisational talent by helping them increase productivity and adapt to changing business demands, both globally and locally. Meta4 offers the most advanced applications to companies of all sizes, public institutions and to suppliers of HR outsourcing services. Founded in 1991, Meta4 is one of the main agents in HCM, according to Gartner (2005), with more than 1,000 clients who are using the company’s solutions in 82 countries to manage 9 million people throughout the world. http://www.meta4.com
• Prim’X Technologies. A French provider of security solutions, Prim'X Technologies was created in 2003 by cryptography experts. Prim’X Technologies has developed and commercialised next-generation encryption software which uses the "on-the-fly encryption" technique and is based on the [FSRd] low-level file access interception technology developed and patented by the company. http://www.primx.fr
• Seemage Inc. Based in Nice, Seemage has made product information available ‘Everyware’ for customers since 2002. With Seemage's system for delivering product information in exactly the right form to the right person at the right time, enterprise investments in CAD, PLM, ERP and CRM are enhanced to deliver more value. With Seemage's XML-based, CAD-independent architecture, products are delivered faster, with higher quality and at lower cost. http://www.seemage.com
• Skyrecon Systems. A French company, Skyrecon Systems is the premier European software vendor for advanced endpoint security solutions. SkyRecon’s mission is to proactively ensure the integrity and reliability of data and applications on every client workstation – stationary or nomadic – without disrupting user activity. http://www.skyrecon.com
• Step Ahead AG. Based in Germany, Step Ahead enables small and medium-sized companies that produce and deal with high-value products and/or provide specialised services to measurably increase productivity and profit in their market. Founded in 1999, Step Ahead enables its customers to be more successful by providing business solutions. Currently, 430 customers in various industries with more than 4,000 desktops use the Step Ahead product Steps Business Solution. They benefit from a broad variety of flexible functionalities for marketing, sales, services and customer care as well as from highly integrated Microsoft technology and applications. http://www.stepahead.eu
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