Businesses still iffy on Vista plans

Businesses are taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to plans for Windows Vista.

According to a Merrill Lynch survey of 100 North American CIOs, two-thirds of businesses are waiting for more information before planning their upgrade schedule to the next version of the operating system, which is due out late next year.

Just 8 percent said they are planning to upgrade in 2007. Twice that many are planning upgrades in 2008, while 5 percent said they plan to wait until 2009.

Meanwhile, just over half of those surveyed said they planned to increase their spending on Linux, with the lion's share (43 percent) favoring Red Hat and 9 percent leaning toward Novell. The remaining 48 percent of those surveyed aren't planning on stepping up Linux use.