Study: Vista still struggling to gain business users

In a new study, Forrester Research uncovers some good news for Microsoft: Vista usage among businesses is up by more than 40 percent since January. The bad news: still, less than 10 percent of the 2,300 companies surveyed use Vista.

More troubling for Microsoft may be the fact that most of those Vista installs are replacing versions of Windows other than Windows XP, which remains popular with both businesses and consumers. Forrester says 87.1 percent of companies surveyed continue to use Windows XP.

In the report, Forrester analyst Thomas Mendel writes that Vista is "New Coke," and sees a strong case for bypassing the release altogether.

"Windows 7 is penciled for release in Q1 2010. And who knows, by then, Apple may have even gotten its enterprise act together," Mendel writes.

(Credit: ProhibitOnions/Coca-Cola)

Microsoft has been touting the fact that Vista adoption is actually on par with past releases, pointing to some new customers, such as the U.S. Air Force. Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte told CNET News on Wednesday that at the end of June, Vista was actually tracking slightly ahead of Windows XP in corporate adoption at the same stage in its lifecycle.

But even some of the company's showcase early adopter customers are moving more slowly to Vista than originally planned. Continental Airlines said in June of last year that it expected to have 7,000 to 10,000 desktops moved to the operating system by the end of last year. As of May, it had only shifted about 2,600 machines to Vista. Continental now expects the majority of its machines to be on Vista by the end of this year, according to a recent white paper.

Expect to hear more about Vista adoption from Microsoft later on Thursday, when Veghte takes the stage at the company's financial analyst meeting in Redmond, Wash. CNET's Ina Fried is on the scene and will be reporting throughout the day.

[kieranmullen]

Microsoft figure it out. People do not want it. Not enough features to pay to upgrade. Lower the cost and people MAY consider it.

[Lerianis]

That is true. That is most likely why businesses are not buying Vista upgrades: because they think it is too expensive for what they get (something I disagree with, but..... eh! (shrugs shoulders))

[kieranmullen]

Microsoft figure it out. People do not want it. Not enough features to pay to upgrade. Lower the cost and people MAY consider it.
KieranMullen

[Michichael]

Yes, because I totally want to rely on one server hosting all of my license keys..

[saintseminole]

The story doesn't say whether the businesses were large or small. I know my employer (with a total of about 20 employees) hasn't moved to Vista because of the cost. We just got XP about three years ago, and it still works.

My boss' philosophy is a good one -- if it ain't broke, then don't fix it.

[Lerianis]

Ah, but XP IS broken. It is MUCH easier to infiltrate and install malicious programs by internet or remotely on a XP machine than on a Vista machine, because of the NUMEROUS security upgrades Microsoft made to Vista and IE7 in Vista.

[MMC Racing]

Vista is ready for prime time finally as driver problems and application compatibility has improved (I didn't say solved, I said improved).. Also, new hardware has caught up to requirements. XP was originally considered bloated as many things ran faster on Windows 2000 Pro at release.

As for the comment of Mac getting their enterprise act together - is that a market Apple even wants? Businesses want to buy cheap computer from established vendors. Is Apple willing to let Dell, IBM, HP, etc build hardware and license their software? Of course not. Apple will continue in the Enterprise as a niche player for specialized applications.

[Lerianis]

The biggest problem with 'application compatibility' is that business still want to use apps that were made for Windows 95 or even earlier than that.
Those businesses are stupid, should upgrade their software to the latest versions, and stop using old programs.

[robvme]

I think the article needs to focus more on Vista deployed versus purchased. Most businesses buy off of volume licensing and may have the "right" to insall Vista, but may just be standing pat. Continental Airlines is a bad example, as any airline would be in this day and age. I would suspect that they don't have 10,000 people to work on those desktops anymore with all of the reductions.

[bob1xxxx]

Look I work for one of the big 4 banks, everyone of are IT guys say the major reasons we do move to vista is hardware. Bank wide on top of the vista liscense fees the bank have to pay up 50million to 100million yes million for printers, scanners, storage system, network gear,etc..... that would all be reneder instantly useless because vista will refuse to except non M$ approved drivers, equipment that works just fine with xp pro. The Seond major is is software , we use alot proprietary software for different products ie home loans, retail banking, bussiness loans, credit cards etc.... . Some of these systems are real antiques (pre dos) but they get the job done and there no really way to get the legacy systems to work under vista because there never was a real capablity mode very built in to vista. Until M$ fixes hardware and software compatablity issues many major corperations are going to pass on vista. M$ need to stop wasting more on adds and get it programers work on compablity issues.

[Lerianis]

Bullcrap about the drivers thing. Vista WILL accept a non-MS approved driver.... you just have to tell it to accept the thing even though it is 'signed by Microsoft'.
As for proprietary software: GET RID OF IT! No business should be using a proprietary software that cannot be upgraded, and ESPECIALLY not a pre-DOS program in this day and age!
As to compatibility issues on OTHER programs... almost every single program I had (Nero excluded) had a FREE update to it that made it work on Vista or it didn't even NEED an upgrade to work on Vista.

As to the 'drivers don't work on Vista' for different things...... if your piece of hardware is ANY more than 5 years old (that is when Microsoft support in Vista drops off).... you should be replacing it about now, especially if you have an old parallel port printer.

[open-mind]

I work for a Fortune-100. We had an enterprise migration to Vista about to start, but recently it was just canceled. Not sure why the sudden change... the cost and compatibility issues of Vista have been know for a pretty long time. Maybe the economy was a factor.

[open-mind]

From the article...

||"Windows 7 is penciled for release in Q1 2010. And who knows, by then, Apple may have even gotten its enterprise act together," Mendel writes.||

It would be interesting to know what they feel is missing from OS X relative to XP.

[kieranmullen]

Microsoft figure it out. People do not want it. Not enough features to pay to upgrade. Lower the cost and people MAY consider it.
KieranMullen

[Riquez-001]

"if it ain't broke, then don't fix it."

I imagine people who say this should still be using records not CD, video & not dvd, still wearing the same tie they bought in 1972.

[ejob]

Vista isn't bad, has suprising features, got stable (good going nVidia!!! :sarcastic:), but it's pricey. It's not really free market when people have to pay the price of a good because it comes with a computer or because of compatibility issues. Lower the price!

[cyclelogicpress.com]

Just needs more advertising! ;)