“I expect sales of notebooks and desktops loaded with Windows Vista to eclipse the sales we did last holiday season of machines with Windows XP,” Wendy Fritz, a vice president at Best Buy, in Richfield, Minn., told eWEEK at a Microsoft-sponsored dinner Oct. 23 to discuss the first holiday season with Windows Vista broadly available.

I’m sure Wendy felt obligated to say something nice since it was a Microsoft sponsored dinner. But will sales really increase this holiday season because computers are being built with Vista installed? Or will it be that traditionally the holiday season is a buying time of the year for electronics and each year sees an increase of computer sales as more people buy computers?

It is hard to tell from her statement what she really means. Had she said ‘I expect sales of notebooks and desktops to eclipse sales because they come with Vista’ could lead one to believe people want Vista loaded machines. But than if that were the case, why is Microsoft allowing OEM’s to continue to offer Windows XP as a replacement for Vista?

Or maybe Wendy should of just said, ‘I expect computer sales to increase this holiday season over last year’. But than that would of not been polite without mentioning her hosts name.

So what do you think. Will computer sales increase this holiday season because they are coming with Vista installed? Or would sales have increased all by themselves?

Comments welcome.

Tags: microsoft, vista, best buy, holiday, sales, season, computers