This week, Microsoft has unleashed Windows Vista to the consumer space, which followed its release to enterprise customers at the end of November. While the release of this latest client operating system received the appropriate dose of media splash and fanfare, the world seems to be a far different place than it was in 1995, when Microsoft unveiled Windows 95.

At that time, the PC had become the new rock star. Robust, relatively easy-to-use, graphical, and highly integrated computing power was available to the masses of employees and masses of consumers. The Internet had just opened up to the commercial world, and we were witnessing the birth of a new economy, driven by bits and bytes, rather than assembly lines and blast furnaces. And, like it or not, Microsoft was the new Standard Oil, the new GM, the new Union Pacific of the era. Redmond became the Rome of the IT world, the new destination, the new home for the best and brightest minds from across the globe.

With the release of Vista 11 years later, the effect is more of a collective ‘fine, let’s move on.’ Sure, it’s always interesting to see a new OS release with new functionality. But the world doesn’t stop in its tracks and gasp in wonderment at the release of every new version of z/OS, OS/400, or Solaris. Why should Windows be any different?

And where is Microsoft getting most of its buzz from these days? Xbox, not Windows.

Vista will see a lot of uptake, but mainly to replace Microsoft’s five-year-old operating system (Windows XP) that has been running on most client workstations. Plus, there will still be the usual anguish over the hardware upgrades Windows always demands.

With growing enterprise interest in service-oriented architecture, Web 2.0, and open source technologies, it appears that Microsoft has become but one of many players offering solutions and on-ramps to this new paradigm. In enterprise data centers, applications can be consolidated on boxes such as System z running Linux or Unix. Virtualization also opens new avenues of deployments, establishing an interface layer over any mix of OSes on all combinations of platforms. The Windows application running underneath looks and performs the same as the Solaris application.

The bottom line is that while most client machines still run Windows, most end-users simply see it as the way to get to somewhere else, not as the place to be. End users are looking to get to hip new places such as Google, and a proliferating array of Web 2.0 communities and mashed-up services. And the best and the brightest minds no longer flock to Redmond, but either head to the Valley, or remain on their home turf, be it Baltimore or Bangalore.