I believe this is a case of self-confirmation bias.
Checking for similar articles from 2003, around 2 years after the launch of XP, I found this gem: "Windows XP, the most current version of Windows, was found on just 6.6 percent of the [business] machines" (http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39161686,0...).
To be relevant, you'd need to consider this against XP's adoption taking into account rate of machine turnover.
Few people actually upgrade OS.
Yes, this means there hasn't been a compelling reason to upgrade OS. But that doesn't mean that much. There hasn't been a very compelling reason to upgrade machines in general.
It might signal that MS were solving problems with Vista (security mostly) that didn't really exist.
As I'm probably overly fond of pointing out, Vista is what caused me to switch to Linux.
I know the businesses I work with have no interest in Vista, and probably won't switch to Windows 7, either -- at least not anytime soon.
I'm advising all those who can to go to thin clients. That is actually about 90% of the business users who can easily use thin clients. They're often just as fast, far more secure, and so much easier to administer.
In Redmond, Windows Current has generally been regarded as the biggest competitor to Windows Next, and there comes a point where people won't pay $hundreds for another dialog box prepended on the workflow for changing your IP address.
You'd think that Embrace, Extend, Sell would be a better mantra than Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, but I guess that's why I'm not a Windows product manager.
Vista introduced features that let network admins have more control over machines on the network, and Win7 kept those features, and fixed many of the infamous Vista problems. So there is an incentive for corporate IT depts to upgrade to Win7.
For consumers, most won't intentionally upgrade. They'll do so by deciding they need new hardware, and probably Windows will come bundled with it.
I worked for a VERY large international bank which just started rolling out XP internally about two years ago. I mean, they need to be careful about stability, but come on!
We went to 'anything but Vista'. Which mostly meant a mix of XP and Xubuntu. We've probably saved between £1-2,000 per host that would've otherwise been upgraded and extended the refresh cycle by a year to accomodate Windows 7 and Core i7 when it comes out and becomes cheap enough later this year.
The lack of change does not have much to do with Vista. The main reason is that businesses are slow to make changes. Once they are comfortable they will not want to touch anything, specially if that means coming out of pocket. Now that being said, yes, Vista sucks.
I wish I could vote you down because this just isn't true, Vista does not suck. This statement is so very tired that I sometimes wonder why I still hear it. What is it that makes Vista suck to you? I've used Vista for 6+ months now for work and I can't name anything particularly sucky about it. Conversely, just the other day I discovered DEP which actually seems like a feature that they should have touted more in the marketing.
Why is there still mindless hatred of Vista? I'm actually kind of excited about Windows 7 which I can't say I've ever been able to claim about any release of Windows.
Vista Fail. I've been using XP since Jan 2004 with no issues, no re-install, still works fine. Why the hell would I upgrade to downgrade my performance. Who needs a bloated candy-colored version of Windows? A new OS should be faster, not slower. Try again, Microsoft. Until then I'll stick with XP and OSX on my Mac.
I can't believe there are companies that are such suckers that they'd be willing to pay a Vista license and then an upgrade to Windows 7. But if there are companies like that, MSFT is right to treat them as bad as they do. They fully deserve it.
[+] [-] halo|17 years ago|reply
Checking for similar articles from 2003, around 2 years after the launch of XP, I found this gem: "Windows XP, the most current version of Windows, was found on just 6.6 percent of the [business] machines" (http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39161686,0...).
[+] [-] netcan|17 years ago|reply
To be relevant, you'd need to consider this against XP's adoption taking into account rate of machine turnover.
Few people actually upgrade OS.
Yes, this means there hasn't been a compelling reason to upgrade OS. But that doesn't mean that much. There hasn't been a very compelling reason to upgrade machines in general.
It might signal that MS were solving problems with Vista (security mostly) that didn't really exist.
[+] [-] quoderat|17 years ago|reply
I know the businesses I work with have no interest in Vista, and probably won't switch to Windows 7, either -- at least not anytime soon.
I'm advising all those who can to go to thin clients. That is actually about 90% of the business users who can easily use thin clients. They're often just as fast, far more secure, and so much easier to administer.
[+] [-] revorad|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grsites|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shiranaihito|17 years ago|reply
I'll switch completely to OS X as soon as I can though.
[+] [-] cadalac|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iigs|17 years ago|reply
You'd think that Embrace, Extend, Sell would be a better mantra than Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, but I guess that's why I'm not a Windows product manager.
[+] [-] antidaily|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aneesh|17 years ago|reply
For consumers, most won't intentionally upgrade. They'll do so by deciding they need new hardware, and probably Windows will come bundled with it.
[+] [-] jedc|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _b8r0|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rokhayakebe|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] latortuga|17 years ago|reply
Why is there still mindless hatred of Vista? I'm actually kind of excited about Windows 7 which I can't say I've ever been able to claim about any release of Windows.
[+] [-] briansmith|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] critic|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weegee|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotcoma|17 years ago|reply