Over the last few years, commodities have been at the center of a boom-and-bust cycle not witnessed before in our lifetimes. But one commodity that missed out on the boom -- but certainly not the bust -- is the dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chip.

This key component of the personal computer became a commodity after the dot-com boom, and its seemingly unlimited supply and availability resulted in falling prices.

There has been no hedge fund craziness with this commodity to drive up prices. Nope, this poor little semiconductor chip could not attract any sort of interest on the buy side. As a result, companies that make the DRAM chip have been struggling to survive.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) might finally be on the verge of seeing the adoption of Vista, wrote Arnie Berman, chief technology strategist, at Cowen & Company late last week.

Berman surveyed 283 corporate IT buyers and found 47% of small- and medium-sized businesses will begin deploying Vista by December 31, this is up from 43% in a similar survey completed in February. 31% of larger enterprises plan to start rolling out Vista by December 31, up from 25% in the previous survey.

How to invest in the long-awaited Vista uptake? Play the Microsoft food chain stocks, particularly since most investors have given up on Vista's adoption, indicating this is where investors could get the most bang for the buck. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Micron Technology Inc (NYSE: MU), Berman believes will be beneficiaries of Vista's adoption. Other investment plays include memory chip maker Qimonda AG (NYSE: QI), the drive makers Seagate Technology (NYSE: STX) and Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC), and Marvell Technology Group Ltd (NASDAQ: MRVL), a supplier to the drive business.

In our past Intel blogs, the Fly has suggested Intel has capacity in place to start ramping 64 megabyte processors big time, on a scale Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NYSE: AMD) does not possess. Berman points out that Intel's enterprise value/sales ratio relative to AMD is close to an all-time low, meaning Intel is cheap relative to AMD despite AMD's recent poor stock performance.

Nvidia at 19x consensus calendar 2007 results has shown the ability to deliver favorable financial surprises and could provide the solution to the greatest potential bottleneck for Vista adoption, the graphic processors.

Micron is selling close to its $10.91 book value which historically has supported the stock and memory demand will increase with the new operating system.