There is, however, some good news. Laura DiDio's Information Technology Intelligence on Friday released a report that said half of businesses surveyed would upgrade to Windows 7 within the first year of release. Considering Vista never got past 20 percent in two years of availability, that has to be reason for optimism.
 
New machines will be the way Windows 7 gets into the ecosystem. I don't remember the number off the top of my head, but I believe the upgrade rate - people installing a new OS on an old machine - is in the single-digit percentage range. I upgraded mine because they are sufficiently advanced, although I wouldn't mind some newer gear (times like this make me wish I did reviews).

The question on my mind was what's happening in retail. Anyone who has followed tech for any length of time knows the legend of the Osborne Effect: Sales dry up in advance of something better coming along. I wondered what it must be like trying to sell a computer these days with the most detested OS in history, when a very well-reviewed successor was in the pipeline.

Stephen Baker, vice president with NPD Group, tells me via e-mail that NPD's trailing weekly research indicates nothing out of the ordinary at retail and that October is a slow month anyway. Things will pick up next month.

In my own very unscientific survey, I found some contrary evidence. The Best Buys around the San Francisco peninsula have cleaned out ALL of their floor models. The blue shirts in the computer section are selling netbooks and peripherals at this point. All the old stock is gone. Locked in cabinets below the demo tables are dozens of boxes of new notebooks with notes in big letters saying not to sell before October 22.

(Click for a larger image. Sorry for the lousy picture quality. iPhone, you know.)

The reps I talked to all said they weren't even going to try to sell Vista machines at this point and that they weren't selling much in recent weeks before dumping the inventory.

We'll see how it all goes. I haven't heard about midnight sales events like back in 1995 when Windows 95 shipped, but hopefully it will generate some excitement.