Businesses waiting till 2011 for Windows 7
A survey of IT professionals has found 83% have no plans to upgrade to Windows 7 in its first year of release. 41% will wait until at least two years after release.
The study, by Dimensional Research, questioned 1,100 IT staff from businesses. It found purchase plans for Windows 7 break down as follows:
- Within 1 year of release: 17%
- Between 1-2 years after release: 42%
- Between 2-3 years after release: 24%
- At least 3 years after release, if ever: 17%
It appears the problems that plagued Vista are proving a risk to Windows 7, however justified they might be for the new system. Two-thirds of those questioned said they had concerns about putting Windows 7 on their system, and a whopping 88% of those said application compatibility problems were their biggest worry.
Of course, there’s a risk that can create a vicious circle. If manufacturers know that it will likely be late 2011 before the majority of businesses are using Windows 7, there’s less incentive to put in the time and money now to get applications up to scratch with the new system.
Such figures are, of course, down to interpretation. Looked at another way, Microsoft can expect that within three years of its release, Windows 7 will have a corporate market share of around 83%. That may be lower than hoped, but it’s still means a bucketload of cash on the way.
The study also found that 50% of IT professionals are at least considering other systems (which, to be fair, is part of their job). The more significant part of this statistics is that 14% say they are in the process of moving away from Windows.
Of those considering a change, Macs are still the leading alternative, though the proportion considering Apple’s system has dropped slightly to 27%. Ubuntu is the biggest winner here, with 25% now saying it’s their most likely alternative.
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April 13th, 2009
This is news? No business of any size running any OS is going to just start deploying a new OS. I bet event Ubuntu will be the LTS.
April 14th, 2009
“The study also found that 50% of IT professionals are at least considering other systems (which, to be fair, is part of their job). The more significant part of this statistics is that 14% say they are in the process of moving away from Windows.”
Microsoft are have managed to position themselves such that they are irrelevant, and death by a thousand cuts is the only logical outcome.