Survey Predicts Upgrade Disaster For Windows Vista
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Microsoft, Windows, Vista | Themes: Business
Mountain View (CA) - Microsoft painted a rosy picture of increasing Windows Vista demand during its most recent quarter conference call, but the reality may look different, if the results of a survey of systems management appliance is somewhat correct: Apparently, six out of ten IT Managers have no plans to replace an older Windows operating system with Vista and almost all say that the recently released Service Pack 1 did not change their opinion and almost half of respondents said that they may be considering other operating systems as alternatives to Windows Vista. Is Microsoft gambling the huge enterprise client market away?
A few days ago, we learned that Microsoft has sold 180 million Vista retail boxes, OEM licenses and enterprise licenses so far. Sure, it is a stunning number by any measure and it is still high enough to make any other company out there jealous. But the reported sales numbers raised questions of possibly declining growth, which especially appear to originate from enterprise license sales.
It is no secret that Windows Vista has had a less than great start with the enterprise and that it has a tough time convincing IT managers of its advantages over Windows XP. New survey results released by Kace, a systems management appliance company, now indicates that the perception of Windows Vista among IT managers is pretty much set and that Microsoft’s sales force will have to work harder to get Vista into enterprise environments.
60% of 1162 U.S. IT administrators surveyed said that they have "no plans" of deploying Vista. This number is 7% higher than the result of Kace’s November 2007 survey. The heavily promoted Service Pack 1 has not changed their opinion, with 92% of respondents stating that the update has not changed their plans for Vista deployment. 83% said that they are concerned about the compatibility of required business software with Vista, 65% said it is challenging to obtain the expertise needed to manage multiple operating systems and 41% of the respondents reported it is challenging to secure multiple operating systems.
The dissatisfaction with Windows Vista is apparently enough to make IT administrators think twice about the deployment of a future Windows operating system. Kace found that 42% of IT administrator respondents said they would consider deployment of alternative operating systems, such as Mac OS and Linux, in order to avoid a migration to Vista. The survey results showed the Mac operating system as the most likely alternative operating system to be deployed, the company said.
"The second version of the Vista Adoption Trends survey clearly demonstrates Microsoft is still fighting an uphill battle with Vista and the release of Vista Service Pack 1 did little to change corporate opinion about the operating system," said Diane Hagglund of King Research, which conducted the survey for Kace. "These same IT departments are evaluating alternative methods to stave off Vista deployment with many moving to the Mac operating system instead. This brings up a whole new set of challenges related to managing heterogeneous environments and compounds the importance of systems management devices that deliver a single interface for diverse operating systems."
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do i get this right? the it.ones are worried if their software runs on vista and that it may be difficult to service xp an vista at the same time. so tehy think about mac or linux? they less worried that the software might not run on mac or linux, and that it is easier to control xp and mac/linux at the same time - that must be a joke - nobody can take this seriuos.
sorry - terrible survey!
^ Hit the nail on the head.
i never thought it would be easier to run a windows xp-native piece of software on mac osx than on windows vista! ever heard of compatibility mode? honestly i think most people are just too afraid to try vista. all these IT guys could easily get a free license and try out all the software on a test computer. Instead of doing this, they just flat out refuse to try it. I upgraded from xp to vista and i've had zero problems. it's perfectly stable, all of my hardware and software works, and it's not sluggish. In fact, i had actually gotten vista beta 2 to run just fine on my old dell dimension 4600 from 2003!
i never thought it would be easier to run a windows xp-native piece of software on mac osx than on windows vista! ever heard of compatibility mode? honestly i think most people are just too afraid to try vista. all these IT guys could easily get a free license and try out all the software on a test computer. Instead of doing this, they just flat out refuse to try it. I upgraded from xp to vista and i've had zero problems. it's perfectly stable, all of my hardware and software works, and it's not sluggish. In fact, i had actually gotten vista beta 2 to run just fine on my old dell dimension 4600 from 2003!
Is there a difference. nearly 3-4 years after XP came out most businesses still used 2000 because they did not want XP.
Service pack 1 was a MASSIVE fix from what I read around the net. I installed Vista 64 with SP1 and with the exception to Nvidia's poor 64 bit 8800GTX drivers, Vista it self works as well if not better then XP.
There is honestly very few software apps that do not work on Vista and hardware drivers are getting better(more hardware support) every day.
Switching to linux or OSX makes no sense if they are worried about compatibility since most software and hardware was designed to run under a Windows environment.
A fair percentage of them would definitely have tried Vista. Fact is what benefits does Vista bring? Obviously most of these people see less benefits than negatives at least compared to just sticking with XP. If compatibility isn't an issue, so what? It isn't with XP either. So +1 all.
As for the compatibility with Linux/OS X. More likely that they realise that they will eventually need to upgrade and when they do they are considering a complete switch from Windows. So compatibility with old apps wouldn't be an issue. Sure might be more drastic and cost more in the short term, but you are no longer reliant on Microsoft. More talking Windows 7 vs. others here anyway and only time will tell.
I forced myself to upgrade to Vista when I got myself a new work laptop. Guess what, our internal application that runs on .NET, runs just fine on Vista. Imagine that.
The only thing I don't like about Vista: It will not run the MS Exchange 2003 Administrator.
What is up with these articles lately? I go on hiatus from Tom's for a year and come back to find that it has turned into a Vista-hating, Apple-loving Fudzilla/Inq subsidiary or something. At least half of the articles that aren't specifically buying guides are stacked sky high with FUD, stop this nonsense please.
Thanks.
I think the survey is mixing IT groups. IT departments that are Windows-dependent but cost-conscious may wait for Windows 7. I know companies that are still deploying Windows 2000 by default and it's not hard to find web servers that still use it.
IT departments that are financially hurting and whose users primarily use web apps (like call centers) can change platforms without much effort and retraining costs since the users don't see any difference.
Companies whose business centers around basic clerical work can switch from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org or web apps fairly easily. More advanced users can switch to Microsoft Office for Mac. Adobe Creative Suite runs on both Windows, Mac, and partially on Linux using Wine.
Engineering applications are either *nix or Windows as there isn't as much support for Mac yet. That may change if Apple's success continues.
My own experience with Vista is that some stuff works, some doesn't, and some works as long as certain operations are avoided. The greater the diversity of applications you use the more likely problems are going to be encountered. It's no different than with previous major OS transitions like Windows 2000 -> Windows XP. Compatibility modes help but some applications are badly written and function mostly by luck and an OS change is going to reveal their flaws.
The performance problems are a whole different issue. It seems to be much worse than the 2000/XP transition. I think most IT departments realize that users aren't going to have a positive experience by merely upgrading XP on their economy business-class systems. They are going to have to invest in new hardware but the budgets of most businesses in the current economy don't allow for it.
sorry - terrible survey!
+1. These slanted articles are becoming far too frequent. I've been an avid Tom's reader for years, but I'm becoming more disgusted with them every time I check the site.
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Nobody can take you "seriuos" until you learn to freakin spell, and maybe learn some grammer, FFS.