Windows Vista business adoption tanking

“Fewer businesses are now planning to move to Windows Vista than seven months ago, according to a survey by patch management vendor PatchLink Corp., while more said they will either stick with the Windows they have, or turn to Linux or Mac OS X,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.

“In a just-released poll of more than 250 of its clients, PatchLink noted that only 2% said they are already running Vista, while another 9% said they planned to roll out Vista in the next three months. A landslide majority, 87%, said they would stay with their existing version(s) of Windows,” Keizer reports.

“Those numbers contrasted with a similar survey the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based vendor published in December 2006. At the time, 43% said they had plans to move to Vista while just 53% planned to keep what Windows they had,” Keizer reports.

“Last year, Linux and Max OS X had only meager appeal to the CIOs, CSOs, IT and network administrators surveyed: 2% said they planned to deploy the open-source Linux, while none owned up to Mac OS X plans. July’s survey, however, noted a six-fold increase in the total willing to do without Windows on at least some systems: 8% of those polled acknowledged Linux plans and 4% said they would deploy Mac OS X,” Keizer reports.

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “macdan2004” for the heads up.]

This is how the dam breaks, with a trickle from a crack here and there and another leak from over there… then one day: Pow!

The “Pow” starts now. wink

Microsoft doesn’t have enough fingers to plug the holes and they certainly have shown no inclination to rebuild the dam correctly from the ground up.

By the way, Redmond, WA is situated in a valley with a river running through its center.

37 Comments

  1. Nothing new here. Our company didn’t roo out XP until 2004-2005. When I arrived at my current branch last year one computer was on Windows 95. I’m not holding my breath for Vista. (Not that I’d want to) Internet Explorer 7 is still not compatible with our online programs. If we “update” to IE7, our back office programs won’t work. It gives a whole new meaning to backwards compatibility.

  2. Still amazing at how much time they spent to release such a poor product.

    That is, ANOTHER poor product!

    Microsoft can no longer recover. It would take them far too long to correct their mistakes, if they can ever do it. Meanwhile, Apple has NEVER been stronger.

  3. Understand this much. Microsoft will show massive sales of Vista but not show the actual activated install base. That is because Businesses can no longer purchase Windows XP unless it comes OEM with a PC. However you can buy Windows Vista and use the license to downgrade to the previous version of windows. This is what my company will be doing. We are forced to buy Vista for the OS license, but we will be using Windows XP because Vista is just that bad.

  4. The only way for microSOFT to recover is for them to do what Apple did, migrate the kernel to a unix variant. This is not going to happen while gates and ballmer are still there and holding so many shares.

  5. I work at a gigantic fortune 5000 company, and the reason we can’t use Vista or IE 7 is that they just plain don’t work with our programs, not even our braindead IE-only intranet site. If Microsoft can’t be bothered to make the newest versions of their OS and browser be compatible with their old versions, what incentive is there to stay on Windows? If the apps need to be re-written, they might as well be re-written to standards so they can be used in Firefox and Safari. Mark my words, the latter part of this decade will be remembered as the era where the world switched to Mac.

  6. Microsoft will also report massive “sales” of vista because of all the corporations like mine that are on subscription and pay extortion money yearly to keep the BSA goons out. All of many thousands and thousands of computers in my company will, at the next annual MS seat count, be reported by microsoft as “sales” of Vista, even though no computers are running Vista, we just paid our yearly per-seat subscription money for nothing (as usual). We would have saved millions of dollars by just buying windows XP and office 2003 licenses in 2003. Instead we get the joy of paying every year for over and over again for the same software while Microsoft tallies it up as sales for the latest unfit-for-business-use Vista/2007 garbage.

  7. “Windows Vista business adoption tanking.”

    And this despite the fact that they pay all the newsmedia to publish glowing reports about Microsoft, and bad reports about Apple. And despite the fact that loosing Microsoft servers and computers means loosing IT jobs.

    Maybe it isn’t “wow”– like ‘isn’t that great looking’, but rather “whoa”– like when you are falling out of control.

  8. Best Vista related MDN take from an earlier article:

    MacDailyNews Take: Oh, come on, we’ve heard plenty of “Wows” — all of them preceding “this sucks.”

    So aptly describing the Vista adoption plans.

  9. I for one really do want MDN’s take to be true, and it may very well be, but every deployment of a new Windows version is met with the same skepticism by real-world IT pros. The adoption plan is always to wait for at least a year and then begin to upgrade – it’s always been his way.

    Linux is fine, but I still say that IT departments are missing out on a lot more than they can collectively imagine by not seriously considering OS X.

  10. …my friend and I are cut out of the same play-set. We look alike, we think alike, we act alike, we talk alike. You can dress us up in many mix and match sweater sets or switch our hair styles back and forth. We are fun and you’re going to love us ….we are the new Vista sweater set …and if you give our heads a 180 you’ll get to meet our evil twins ..that’s right, our evil twins.

  11. “I hope this is the beginning of more and more people begin less willing to be ass raped by MS.”

    WHAT? I thought owning and using a personal computer guaranteed regular ass rapings by Microsoft. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did years ago when I installed Windows 95.
    You’re confusing and scaring me.

  12. Well,

    I’m at a medium sized state u; we pay M$ over $100,000 (US) per year for the “privilege” of being forced to use their crap. The College of Business insists on only M$ software; the administrators can’t type text memos in anything but M$ Word, and every thing comes down in PowerPoint. sigh.
    The old saw is still apropos:
        Power corrupts,
        PowerPoint corrupts absolutely

  13. The sad thing is that the 2% of Vista business’ install base is still 1% over that of the entire Mac install base. MS has sold over 60 Million copies of Vista(all versions)..As for the comment on getting ass raped..The last time I bought an apple product I felt as though I had been ass raped by a large black man with sand paper wrapping..Id rather get raped by MS and have it feel good than walk funny for a month..

    (mw) makes , as in after not coming to this site for over a year, it “makes” me almost as sick as the apple queers I saw downtown last weekend muggin down and feltching each other..

    Is this common apple user behavior?

  14. Microsoft will also report massive “sales” of vista because of all the corporations like mine that are on subscription and pay extortion money yearly to keep the BSA goons out.

    MS-BSA harassment should be a primary reason for business to consider Apple.

    What happens when MS gets desperate enough to declare all non-Vista licenses null & void, saying Vista MUST be purchased and installed to avoid a BSA raid?

    How many would cave? How many would say *F* this and switch?

  15. Meanwhile, 90% of the world’s computers run on Windows, 95% of the world’s cars run on petrol

    Both have finite futures, both are self-perpetuating lies.

    When will the masses finally wake up and start investing in sustainable technology?

  16. “99,5% of the world’s countries use Metric”
    The world still uses inches for TV screen sizes and tire diameters, airline pilots still uses feet for altitude, and computers still use binary 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64,,,

  17. “The world still uses inches for TV screen sizes and tire diameters, airline pilots still uses feet for altitude, and computers still use binary 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64,,,”

    Actually in Australia, both TV screens and tyre diameters are measured in centimetres, and I’m pretty sure the pilots here use metres

    computers do use binary (for efficiency, and the fact that, to other computers metric convenience is a waste of time), however the average user doesn’t really have to worry about that. This is sorta what operating systems are for.

  18. Just admit it Microsoft, Vista is the biggest flop in the software industry’s history!

    No one wants it or more impoertantly, needs it!

    Businesses are sick and tired of having their money extorted from them by the Microsoft Mafia.

    Im a Design Consultant by trade, and I hear the same message from clients everytime I get my MacBook Pro out at a meeting “We are thinking of moving over to Macs”.

  19. re; The only way for microSOFT to recover is for them to do what Apple did, migrate the kernel to a unix variant. This is not going to happen while gates and ballmer are still there and holding so many shares.

    ___

    I agree.

    But, this also wont happen because it means that all software will be compatible with Macs – which means NO ONE will buy the Windows Unix based OS.

    I cant see Microsoft ever doing this becuase Apple has already done it and there would be no incompatibilities between the OSs. This would be great for Mac market share because you will be able to use any windows software on your mac, but it will destroy Windows market share because people will see even more clearly that OS X would be the better OS to use.

  20. @Dan Heinze

    “And this despite the fact that they pay all the newsmedia to publish glowing reports about Microsoft, and bad reports about Apple.”

    Oh really, so all the media is on the take from Microsoft huh? So where’s your evidence dude?

    I passed that on to my wife who is a 30 veteran of American and Australian newspapers. Her response is unprintable, although roughly translated she said you should change your name to Richard Cranium.

  21. The actual numbers are not as important as the general change in attitude. Going from 43% planning to move to Vista TO 11% (2+9) having already moved or planning to move to Vista, in a six month period, is a BIG problem for Microsoft. In another six months, it will be down to 3% as some companies that have already migrated decide to get rid of Vista and go back to XP (or look at alternatives to Windows).

  22. “The actual numbers are not as important as the general change in attitude. Going from 43% planning to move to Vista TO 11% (2+9) having already moved or planning to move to Vista, in a six month period, is a BIG problem for Microsoft.”

    Except that what they said was 28% thought they would move to to Vista in the first year, and 11% will likely have.

    Ask the same people today how many think they will move to Vista in the next year, you’ll probably get 43% or better.

    And those are numbers for a corporate wide rollout.

    8% will have Linux somewhere, and 4% will have Mac OS X somewhere. You can bet already 90% have Vista somewhere in the organization.

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