Microsoft tries to chop down Forrester claims
Microsoft has hit back at the Forrester Research report which likened Vista to ‘New Coke’ after estimating just 8% of large businesses are using the system. The response came from a Microsoft communications worker Chris Flores (pictured left), who made a post on the official blog for Windows development.
It’s notable that Flores didn’t dispute the factual findings in the report: indeed, he described the results as “a bunch of pesky statistics”. Instead he saved his attack for writer Thomas Mendel’s (pictured right) conclusions that industry has rejected Vista and that firms should consider following Intel’s lead in skipping the system altogether.
Flores’ take on the study is that Mendel doesn’t acknowledge that businesses are usually much slower than home users to adopt new systems. That’s because it’s a more complicated procedure to update an entire network of computers (particularly in the large companies which Mendel looked at). He also argued that business upgrades can be more troublesome because firms often can’t afford any downtime.
The blog also contains a couple of links to other reports which supposedly undermine Mendel’s arguments. One is to an article by ComputerWorld’s David Feng, which Flores says mirrors his point about the longer upgrade cycle for businesses. However, the article doesn’t specifically tackle this point; instead Feng concentrates on the fact that users are always reluctant to upgrade to new Windows editions.
Flores also links to a previous Forrester report titled ‘Building the Business Case for Windows Vista’, though this link is down, possibly because Forrester doesn’t let people reproduce entire reports without permission. However, Flores doesn’t make clear that while this previous report says firms should upgrade to Vista, most of them aren’t planning to do so.
It’s understandable that Microsoft should feel the need to respond to Mendel’s report, which has led to some negative coverage. However, by getting into an argument about interpretations and opinions, the software giant risks getting bogged down; indeed, Flores’ post does appear to be attacking the messenger instead of the message. From a publicity perspective, Microsoft would be better off sticking to correcting factual errors and releasing their own hard numbers where relevant.
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July 28th, 2008
“Businesses are usually much slower than home users to adopt new systems. That’s because it’s a more complicated procedure to update an entire network of computers (particularly in the large companies which Mendel looked at).”
Yeah, THAT’s why after buying all new computers, businesses mass-downgraded them.
Is getting used to a new OS so much more difficult than downgrading all your computers?
July 28th, 2008
“Businesses are usually much slower than home users to adopt new systems. That’s because it’s a more complicated procedure to update an entire network of computers (particularly in the large companies which Mendel looked at).”
Yeah, THAT’s why after buying all new computers, businesses mass-downgraded them.
Is getting used to a new OS so much more difficult than downgrading all your computers?
People downgraded to avoid Vista, not because it was easy.
July 29th, 2008
Flores left out the pesky fact that businesses don’t upgrade unless there is a clear benefit to do so. What is more troubling for Microsoft is Server 2008 isn’t much of an upgrade until you hook it to Vista clients. Take the business market away from them and they shrink from gigantic to huge.
Don’t forget how they wrested the server market from Novell by getting the desktop in a death grip.
July 29th, 2008
Of course Vista is like “New Coke” – if you pour “New Coke” into your computer, there is no guarantee that your computer will work well afterwards (if it will work at all), even if you attempt to clean up the mess. Clearly, anyone silly enough to pour “New Coke” into their computer would regret their foolishness afterwards.
Pretty much the same thing as installing Vista.