The new operating system launched last week for business and will launch next month in January to consumers. Microsoft hired 10,000 people to create Windows Vista, a task that lasted approximately five years, according to Business Week. Experts are saying Vista may be the last of its kind. Why? If Google continues to offer free, ad-supported software over the Internet (like its Spreadsheets suite), then nobody will need to pay the premium cost for Microsoft’s operating system.

And how much it cost to create Windows Vista? Here is a snippet from the article:

If we assume Microsoft’s costs per employee are about $200,000 a year, the estimated payroll costs alone for Vista hover around $10 billion. That has to be close to the costs of some of the biggest engineering projects ever undertaken, such as the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb during World War II. And while Microsoft toiled on Vista, its stock price stayed flat.

But analyst are saying Vista sales should contribute $11.5 billion after June 30, 2007.