IdentityMine's Lu Silverstein shows the company's multi-touch technologies on Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. (Dan Schlatter/PSBJ photo)

Tacoma-based software company IdentityMine Inc. has developed a niche in the underlying technology for “natural user interfaces,” as they’re known in the industry -- betting, for example, that PC users will increasingly control their computers by touching their screens.

And it’s banking on Microsoft’s Windows 7 to help make it happen.

The strategy isn’t without risk, as evidenced by Windows Vista's troubled tenure. But the industry is looking at Windows 7 as a fresh start, and IdentityMine isn’t the only one hitching its business to the new version of Microsoft’s flagship program.

Windows 7’s upcoming release is creating a glimmer of hope in an otherwise gloomy technology market. PC makers, chip manufacturers, retailers, software companies, technology service providers and others have begun to gear up for the release — particularly following Microsoft’s announcement this week that Windows 7 will debut this year, in time for the critical holiday shopping season.

“It’s going to bring a huge amount of awareness,” said Lu Silverstein, IdentityMine’s senior vice president of products and services, discussing Windows 7’s new touch technologies. Silverstein, who came from Microsoft last year, cited the marketing blitz that accompanies a big Windows release.

Other companies are thinking along the same lines. The potential business benefits of Windows 7 have come up repeatedly in recent conference calls, news releases and regulatory filings from such companies as PC maker Dell; business technology firms Citrix Systems and FullArmor; sound company Dolby Laboratories; and chip makers Cypress Semiconductor, Nvidia, and AMD; among others.

In many cases, the expected benefit comes from improved technologies under the hood in Windows 7 that will work with advanced software or components from those companies.

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For example, better graphics technologies in Windows 7 could boost demand for dedicated graphics processors by generating new interest in a better visual experience, AMD executive Bob Rivet told Wall Street analysts in April, according to a transcript of the conference call.

Similarly, IdentityMine expects to benefit from Windows 7’s support for multi-touch technologies — the ability to use multiple fingers on a screen, as a supplement or replacement for a traditional keyboard and mouse. IdentityMine’s expertise in that area began with early work on specialized applications for Microsoft’s Surface tabletop computer.

It’s now working with other companies and software developers, offering its “Gesture Engine” to build touch features into Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 programs.

The company hasn’t been adding staff in anticipation of Windows 7’s release, but the related business has helped keep its employment levels steady this year – which is increasingly rare in the down economy. IdentityMine has 68 full-time employees, 38 of them in Washington state.

Some in the industry hope interest in Windows 7 will fuel PC sales. Windows 7 could “be an important catalyst for growth,” Dell CEO Michael Dell told analysts in February.

That would put the new operating system somewhere ahead of Windows Vista but still well behind the blockbuster Windows 95 in terms of impact on the personal-computer market.

The big wild card is the economy. Worldwide PC shipments were down 7 percent in the first quarter, as the difficult economy put a crimp on purchases, according to the IDC market-research firm.

And not everyone is convinced Windows 7 will lift PC purchases.

“I do not think there is any pent-up demand with respect to the (Windows 7) release, and so it is not having any effect on our business whatsoever,” said Kristin Rogers, vice president of marketing for catalogue retailer PC Mall Inc., during a May 6 conference call with analysts.

“A new operating system hasn’t moved the market for a long time,” agreed Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the Kirkland-based Directions on Microsoft research firm, saying he generally doesn’t expect Windows 7 to make people buy new computers at a faster rate than they otherwise would have.

Among computer enthusiasts, there does seem to be demand for Windows 7, said Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems Inc., an Auburn-based custom computer maker. Many of them want a modern operating system that can work effectively with 64-bit microprocessors, which can handle far more memory than 32-bit chips do. But because of Windows Vista’s negative reputation, many computer users and companies have been avoiding it, sticking with Windows XP for now.

Windows 7 will probably be a “trigger point” for many tech enthusiasts to buy machines with the new operating system pre-installed, Bach said.

For Microsoft, at least, Windows 7 offers a chance at redemption. After a series of delays, Windows Vista fell flat upon its January 2007 retail launch — experiencing widespread software and hardware compatibility problems that kept many businesses and consumers from upgrading.

With Windows 7, the company named new engineering leaders and changed its approach.

One difference: Windows 7 is a more incremental upgrade, promising many improvements and refinements but representing a smaller technological leap than Windows Vista did over the earlier Windows XP. That’s expected to make the shift easier for Microsoft's partners and customers.

In addition, Microsoft has been careful not to go public with Windows 7 details and dates until it’s certain of them — trying to create more reliability for the industry.

Even if it doesn’t lift PC sales, Windows 7 could help put Microsoft on a more solid footing in the tough economy. Revenue declined 16 percent in the company’s PC Windows division, to $3.4 billion, in the quarter ended March 31. Windows 7 could convince consumers to upgrade existing PCs and big businesses to enter long-term licensing deals with upgrade rights, said analyst Rosoff.

The fact that Windows 7 can run on popular “netbooks” also helps. Windows Vista’s beefy system requirements keep it from being used use on those small, Web-oriented notebook computers. Microsoft currently offers the older Windows XP for them at a lower average selling price.

For the industry, getting Windows 7 on the market in time for the peak shopping season also should help, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a consulting firm in Wayland, Mass., that has done consulting work for the Redmond company. Windows 7 may even be out in time for the back-to-school season, he predicted, creating even more opportunity.

Microsoft has tuned Windows 7 to run more efficiently, and people using test versions say the operating system seems generally stable and reliable. Early reviews from technology pundits have been generally good. Assuming that warm reception continues, businesses may feel comfortable upgrading to Windows 7 earlier than they did to previous versions, Kay said, and PC sales in general could benefit.

“It’s a crappy year,” Kay said, but Windows 7 should help “make the second half of the year better than the first, even more than normal seasonality.”