A Constellation of Partners
In Massachusetts, the Windows Vista partner ecosystem will stimulate billions of dollars in new economic activity.
For thousands of high-tech companies in Massachusetts, Windows Vista is creating enormous opportunities to provide new products and services for customers. According to research that Microsoft commissioned from the Framingham research firm IDC, Windows Vista will generate more than $2 billion in sales of software, hardware and services provided by Bay State companies in 2007. And another $400 million will be pumped into the state economy this year by local companies readying and rolling out technologies to work with the new operating system.
For example, ICONICS, Inc., in Foxborough provides business intelligence software for manufacturers. It worked closely with Microsoft’s Windows Vista developers to create a new generation of “visualization software” that shows what’s happening on the factory floor in real time – and connects manufacturing with other internal business processes.
“For us, visuals are everything,” says ICONICS President and CEO Russell L. Agrusa. “In the old days, you’d have gauges and dials that monitored building operations and processes. Windows Vista’s new graphics capabilities and user interface have opened up a whole new world for us. We can now give our customers a 360-degree view of the entire manufacturing shop.”
Boston-based Adesso Systems is embracing Windows Vista to help it surf three big Internet waves — social networking, community formation and media sharing — with a small but powerful new application called Tubes. It enables people to easily and privately share anything — photos, music, video or documents — with networks of friends, family and co-workers, simply by dragging and dropping files into an icon on their computer desktop.
“Think of it as two-way synchronization of everything shared between groups of invited people,” says Steve Chazin, Adesso’s vice president of marketing. “Tubes is a really cool, free application designed to sit alongside and enhance the other great things Vista does, and it’s possible today only on Microsoft platforms.”
For EMC Corporation, a world leader in information management solutions headquartered in Hopkinton, “Windows Vista is primarily a services play,” says Linda Connly, vice president for strategic alliances. “Many of our customers are interested in Windows Vista because it offers enhanced collaboration and security features. EMC’s consulting practice is helping customers to assess what types of end-user and IT benefits they can expect, and to automate deployments of Windows Vista and Office 2007 across large numbers of computer desktops.”
ICONICS, Adesso and EMC are just three of more than 6,500 other Massachusetts-based IT companies that are producing, selling or distributing products and services running on Windows Vista. According to IDC, 65 percent of the new jobs created by this partner ecosystem in 2007 will be directly related to the new operating system, helping the Commonwealth continue its leading role in technology and the global economy.
