By Tim Ferguson, 6 December 2007 16:20
NEWS
Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system is failing to win over silicon.com readers, with two-thirds (65 per cent) saying their organisation will never move onto XP's successor.
More than a year after Vista's business release, the latest silicon.com poll asked readers when they think their organisation will migrate to Redmond's latest OS offering.
Vista: all the coverage...
1. Vista: Piracy rates half the level of XP, says Microsoft
2. Vista not grabbing businesses... yet
3. Microsoft still bullish about Windows Vista
4. Poll: In a fight between Vista, OS X, Linux, XP...
5. One year on: XP still outshining Vista
6. Vista - businesses not convinced
7. Vista - when will business take the plunge?
8. Gates: Vista selling faster than XP
9. Tesco.com takes stock with Windows Vista
10. CIO Jury: IT chiefs not yet planning for Windows Vista
Of those companies considering a move to Vista, almost one third (28 per cent) said they aren't planning to do so until at least 2009 or later.
This left just four per cent of respondents saying they plan to upgrade within the next year and a mere one per cent looking to do so within the next six months.
Just two per cent of more than 800 respondents to the poll said their company has already made the move to Vista.
Businesses are not rushing to upgrade to Vista because of compatibility issues and a perceived lack of benefits over its predecessor, XP.
In another recent silicon.com poll, XP was named by 42 per cent of respondents as their most preferred OS. Vista gained 14 per cent of the vote but was beaten by both Apple's Mac OS X and Linux.
But despite these concerns, Microsoft says the business uptake of Vista has met expectations and is following the same pattern as previous major OS releases.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. Nick Cole
The reason is that Vista is what Microsoft preferred to make available, what they wanted and not what the customers want. In many instances change for change's sake rather than a real improvement. Why do we need to invest in a new device and environment to allow us merely to carry on doing what we have always done?
We've all been round the loop several times now, a new product promising the earth, several years of bugs and learning its quirks, only to have to reinvest in that learning and associated hardware at each iteration. Not only that but faced with ever detached and dismissive support options.
At the end of the day the only real thing that changes is the look and feel of the product and where is the benefit of that? Even if something is not the most ergonomic or elegant once millions of people get used to it then we are back at the VHS v Betamax parallel.
And my 3 year old 1GHZ laptop with 1GB of RAM is far more than ample for what I do.
2. Anthony Hunt
If Microsoft think the business uptake of Vista "meets expectations" then they must have had some very low expectations.
The only people I've encountered who don't wipe Vista off a new PC and put on XP are non-technical users who don't have access to a copy of XP.
Just yesterday a busness associate was horrified how long it took to backup a 400MB .PST file to a USB 2.0 pen on Vista from his new laptopm when he saw the mere seconds it took to copy back onto his three year old desktop PC running XP.
3. Martin Anderson
Microsoft are getting a distorted view of the real uptake of Vista. When we purchase hardware we try to find equipment that has XP installed, but often the machine we need doesn't have this option, so we buy a Vista machine and reinstall XP.
Microsoft think that they have sold a Vista licence - well they have, but it is not even shelfware, it is simply discarded. Their statistics would indicate that my organisation now has over 30% Vista, in reality we have only one Vista machine for compatibility testing.
4. Peter Harding
Microsoft can be likened to an ostrich.
Buries its head in the sand rather than face the truth that Vista is going the same way as ME. Only bought by home users preinstalled on a new machine.
Let us hope they bury Vista as quickly as their head!
5. Brian Nesbit
I believe that Bill Gates and MicroSoft have got it very wrong with Vista. It is just such a memory hungary OS and although Vista does have some nice feactures there are still many problems when you need drivers for some printers, scanners etc. I was one of the people that bought a new Notebook with Vista installed specifically to gain experience with Vista. Firstly the RAM was not sufficient and I had to upgrade, then my new all-in-one printer would not work correctly. With a lot of manipulation I finally have a systm that works but I will not be upgrading my other PC's or Laptop's at this time, I will continue uing XP for now.
6. Stephen Matthews
I support Home PC's as a business. I have 9 PC in my organisation, only one of which is Vista (just in case some one calls me with a question), otherwise I use XP.
On Vista much of the natural questions have been moved (Network) to non meaningfull areas, disk cleanup (done for you but you can't see it), defrag (ditto), Updates and "failures" (Windows has found a problem. We'll let you know when there's a resolution) all tucked away. Touchy-feely. The confidence bits have been removed, the "nice looking" bit have been "enhanced"
The only enhancement that I really do like is the backup (but then only if you leave the PC on 24*7 and the remote disk ditto)
7. Joe Whitehead
Anthony Hunt: You obviously are using EHCI drivers in Windows XP and not in Vista. 1.5 MB/s vs 60 MB/s theoretical speeds. It's literally 20 times slower on Vista? While I don't like Vista, I'd still make sure I had USB 2.0 drivers before blaming Vista.
Of course, the problem is that not all devices HAVE Vista drivers now, if ever. This is why most people getting Vista are opting to get whole new systems. I don't want to even imagine upgrading 100 systems without the right drivers to this new merri-go-round.