I'm pretty underwhelmed:

1. "Security, security, security": MS said much the same thing about XP. Security is something you earn over time, not something you announce in advance.

2. IE7: "Firefox-inspired", why not just use FireFox which is available today, for your platform?

3. "Righteous eye candy" - but you need a hot machine just to run the UI?? Looks like the worst case of bloatware I've seen in a while.

4. Desktop search - get it today from Google, on your platform.

5. "Better updates" - the commentator says it best, "isn't a gee-whiz upgrade".

6. "More media" - very little here for business use other than distraction. Good for kids in a "Vista Home Edition" I suppose.

7. "Parental controls" - nothing here for business. Potential temporary annoyance for kids in a "Vista Home Edition".

8. "Better backups" - at last, something potentially worthwhile - as long as it at least partially catches up to the best-of-breed 3rd party products out there.

9. "Peer to peer collaboration" - again, potentially worthwhile if easier to use and better integrated than existing 3rd party alternatives, and ideally not limited to Vista (although it sounds like a weak attempt by MS to try to force a lock-in/upgrade, a la Windows Media Player 10)

10. "Quick Setup" - not an ongoing benefit to anyone, and it's "beta" (IOW enjoy with a considerable mass of sodium chloride)

I can see two possible interpretations of all this:

A. Michael Desmond doesn't know what he's talking about, and Vista is actually much better than his list would otherwise lead us to believe

B. He does know what he's talking about and this really is the best list he could come up with. If he can somehow conclude that "in a lot of ways, it's a giant leap forward" clearly he's just an MS shill.