The bottom line: IT and CIOs are skipping Vista for Windows 7
The question has been raised several times whether to upgrade to Vista now, or simply wait for Windows 7. It’s becoming increasingly clear that CIOs and leading IT executives are leaning more towards waiting to see what Windows 7 has to offer and completely bypassing Windows Vista all together.
PC World is reporting that many IT managers and CIOs are standing firm that the risks of migrating to Vista outweigh the benefits. With Windows 7 showing signs of decent improvements over Vista in terms of efficiency and security, there’s really no reason to go with Vista anymore. Microsoft, in light of this, has turned some of their attention away from Vista in recent times, with Vista sales falling well short of expectations. For the fiscal first quarter of 2009, Microsoft’s Windows client division revenue increased a mere 2 percent in year-over-year growth, while operating income dropped by 4 percent. Microsoft seems to be content with the fact that many enterprise level environments will never experience Vista like they had hoped in the beginning.
A main reason many people (and businesses) didn’t upgrade to Vista in the first place really had nothing to do with the months and months of bad publicity. The old adage of “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” really holds true. Many believe there was no reason to upgrade from XP, as it provides everything they need. Businesses couldn’t see a positive return on investment in upgrading Vista. Given, the bad publicity hasn’t helped things, but I don’t think it was the main reason for many people not upgrading. People get used to a way of doing things, especially in a business environment when hundreds or thousands of people are used to one OS. Changing OS’s and having to retrain an entire workforce is a lot to ask.
John Halamka, CIO of Harvard Medical School, says he has not been able to justify upgrading to Vista for his user population of doctors and nurses, citing the PC hardware requirements of Vista and the stability of XP. “The hardware lifecycle in health care is five to seven years, and Vista requires more modern hardware then we have,” Halamka says. “Simplicity, ease of use and performance are key drivers for us. XP addresses these needs better than Vista.”
Microsoft, as they seem to be doing, just needs to forget about Vista all together. Focus all attention on making Windows 7 everything Vista wasn’t, and hopefully they can avoid the mess they created with the launch of Vista.
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