By releasing SP1 for Vista, Microsoft was hoping it would boost deployment of the OS in enterprise environments.  A recent survey conducted of IT professionals found that it indeed has not, and actually has had the opposite effect, showing a 7% drop over a similar survey conducted last year.

The survey, conducted in June by King Research, found that of the 1,162 IT professionals surveyed, 60% had no Vista migration plans, an increase of 7% from a November 2007 King Research survey of over 900 IT professionals. 92% of the participants said the Vista SP1 release hadn’t changed their migration plans at all, according to WindowsITPro.

The overwhelming Vista-migration concerns stem from the incompatibility issues with vital business software.  Other concerns are issues with the OS’s performance in terms of boot up and processing, interface adaptation on behalf of users, and the overall stability.  In an IT environment where hundreds or thousands of PCs and laptops are deployed, training those employees to adapt to a whole new interface is almost inconceivable.  When faced with the decision, I would venture to guess IT administrators would rather make a switch to something like Linux or Ubuntu rather than Vista if the need to switch is apparent.

While Vista concerns aren’t breaking news, the survey’s findings about continued interest in non-Windows OS adoption as an alternative to a Vista-migration might raise some Microsoft-executive eyebrows, and is most likely a huge factor in the upcoming Microsoft shake-up announced recently.  The June survey found that 42 % of the IT professionals surveyed said they’ve considered adopting non-Windows OSs as an alternative to a Vista migration, down from 44% in the November 2007 survey.  IT departments are dropping their Window’s branded environments for more stable Linux or Mac-based systems at a not-so-surprising rate.

At this point, it’s going to take a lot more than fixing small problems via service pack updates to change IT department’s minds, as well as consumers in general for that matter.  Fueled by un-ending bad press and pressure from undeniably better competition from the likes of Mac, Red Hat Linux, and Ubuntu, Microsoft is almost at the point of having to completely revamp its Windows offerings to change its image.  Maybe with Windows 7 making its way into stores in about 18 months, it’s exactly what Microsoft is planning to do. 

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Entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 6:06 pm under Microsoft, Opinion, Vista, windows 7.  Print This Post

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