“A KACE-sponsored survey on Windows Vista adoption represents more bad news for Microsoft’s flagship operating system, even as Microsoft prepares to pour an estimated $300 million into a new Vista marketing campaign–news that was announced at Microsoft’s 2008 Worldwide Partner Conference,” Kurt Mackie reports for Campus Technology.
“The survey polled 1,162 IT professionals in June and was conducted by King Research for KACE, which makes a hardware-based systems management product for IT administrators,” Mackie reports.
“This survey found a slip in Windows Vista deployment plans, with 60 percent of respondents saying that they had “no plans to deploy Vista at this time,” compared with 53 percent in the 2007 survey,” Mackie reports.
“42 percent said they were considering alternative operating systems to Windows Vista. The Macintosh operating system was the favored alternative by 29 percent of respondents. Linux-based operating systems were also in the running, but trailed,” Mackie reports.
“Rob Meinhardt, cofounder and CEO of KACE, believes that IT is moving more toward managing a heterogeneous desktop environment, even to the point of giving employees their choice of computer to use,” Mackie reports. “KACE is a case in point, since about 50 percent of its computers are Macs, Meinhardt explained.”
Full article here.
The full results of KACE’s June 2008 survey are here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JerryAM” for the heads up.]
See
http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/
Vista is clearly better (if you happen to be in a Microsoft controlled environment on a Microsoft set-up computer!)
Barad Dür.
Wings,
You can have my Vista for 50% list price. Slower than molasses.
The problem with MicroSoft’s blind test is that all the subjects were given new computers set up by MS. I doubt the response would have been quite so glowing if they had been given a mere Vista upgrade on their old PC or tried setting it up on a custom built PC where their older peripherals are often not supported or deemed “unauthorized”, sometimes leaving the user with “reduced functionality”.
Chrissyone!
B…b…but MOJAVE!
So MS tricks their very customers and basically makes them idiots? Is that what Mojave is all about?
Mojave is a desert, with a Vista gasping for water, or ANY relief.
Just wait till Apple comes out with the iTele running on Snow Leopard. Apple’s ability to put forth intergalactic teleportation for the masses will be the final nail in Microsoft’s coffin.
Could anyone imagine a teleportation device running on Vista. I know I couldn’t.
The problem with MicroSoft’s blind test is that all the subjects were given new computers set up by MS.
Which should be criminal.
Imagine an automotive “test drive” that consisted only of dedicated units that were specially babied by their engineers, versus the mass-produced models on the lot that you can actually buy.
Such a test would be meaningless at best, and could be considered fraud.
Gotta love the crap MS gets away with.
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I’d much rather work in a heterogeneous work environment than a homogeneous one.
If you know what I mean.
Ballmer makes one Fugly Sauron.
Obviously, this survey is flawed..
HP is selling most of their computers with Vista “licenses” pre-installed with Windows XP. This $300 million marketing campaign for Vista is desperation, because Microsoft knows it’s not going to have the replacement for Vista ready until 2012 at the earliest. They can’t have their OEM partners installing stealth XP until XP is ten years old.
Alternately, Microsoft can release Windows XP Service Pack 4 as “Windows 7.” They can probably do that by the end of 2009. It’s apparently what customers want; it should sell better than Vista.
I was checking out http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/ .
By Scott, what a bad page. First, it autoplays a video! Pisses me off.
Then, the video player displays a play triangle while playing, and a pause icon while paused. ?!? WTF? Any other player does it the other way around!
Plus, the funky, cool, mouse following animation is kinda neat, but carries exactly zero information. If Vista was really better, they could present some hard, cold data to prove it. They can’t. That’s why they have to resort to a stupid ‘candid camera’ stunt.
Face it… professional IT folks just do not buy crap… let alone turds!
The sooner M$ understands this the better off their going to be!
I guess they could start pushing M$’s new ball… it might be ready for the market in 15 to 30 years!
@ken1-w
The problem is that in a couple of years, even Linux may be ready to overtake XP (overtake, not leap-frog…)
OEMs could then just sign a contract with Canonical/RHAT/NOVL for the portion of the customers that need it and be set.
Once people don’t have Windows on the desktop anymore, most of the rest of the “Windows-franchise” (file-servers, Sharepoint, SQL, Exchange, whatever) also loses most of it’s attraction. At that point, MSFT would be in really big trouble.
So MSFT is really under pressure from several sides: customers defecting to AAPL, AAPL themselves by setting de-facto standards in new markets, and finally MSFT’s OEMs that have to look more or less helplessly as AAPL climbs the above mentioned sales-rankings.
If they don’t come out with something good soon, the successful two-trick-pony-show that Microsoft has been for the last 20 years might end rather abruptly.
Interesting how MSFT has to resort to deceit and deception to get people to use its product! They don’t even give a Coke vs. Pepsi choice to these people!
That “mojave experiment” was just viral PR bullshit dreamed up by Microsoft’s ad agency to go along with their “people used to believe the earth was flat” campaign.
There has been no public video posted to backup that this experiment actually took place, no one outside of Microsoft has been shown any video to back up that this experiment took place, and we’re only hearing about the glowing testimonials the subjects allegedly gave second-hand from Microsoft…so you KNOW you can trust the information.
Bookmark it. You’re never going to see the video of “the mojave experiment”, because it’s pure ad copy start to finish.
Over at ComputerWorld the MS marketing money is already having results. You should see the plethora of new articles this past week that “re-evaluate Vista”, or explain how surveys such as the one here are just wrong, how IT experts have now come around and are embracing Vista. The flood of pro Vista articles is downright amusing as we watch publishers begin to salivate over the huge MS media spend expected to happen. Won’t it be funny if the much ballyhooed media budget is as vaporous as most of MS’s announcements?
PS: ChrissyOne, great post! LOL
VISTA is nice if you never get online or use your PC.
The worst thing about being on a sinking ship is that the passengers are the last to know.
@ alansky
The best thing about a sinking ship is that the captain goes down with it.
{fingers crossed}
What’s amusing are the continued prognostications of M$’s imminent demise and Apple’s/*nix’ sudden dominance across all environments. No limit to the Jobsian RDF I guess…
@ Another IT Guy…
No one here predicts Apple’s dominance across all environments.
Stop talking.