Half Of Businesses Still Use Windows 2000

bonch writes "An AssetMetrix study shows that half of business are still running Windows 2000 four years after the release of Windows XP, and that usage of Windows 2000 has only decreased by 4% since 2003. Microsoft will officially stop supporting Windows 2000 by the end of this month, offering one last update rollup later this year. Windows XP's slower adoption illustrates Microsoft's difficulty in competing with the popularity of its own software platform, and makes it more difficult for Microsoft to convince people to upgrade when Longhorn is released late next year."

Comments

Why upgrade?

[alanjstr]

I have not run into a compelling reason to upgrade from Win2k to XP. Win2k has been very stable for me. It seems that my XP boxes get more security patches than my Win2k boxes. I don't need all the eye candy of XP.

Good enough wins.

[Colin Smith]

Certainly in the mass market. Why upgrade if you're not getting any significant benefit and possibly causing yourself huge amounts of grief?

What new features?

[asciiRider]

Here is a list of the new features in XP. Notice the use of words like "Enhanced, Improved, Greater, Easier" -

For the life of me, I can't figure out why anybody would consider moving thousands of workstations to XP. The only thing I can come up with is the built in firewall which can be controlled via group policy.

User interface improvements? Big deal, so now it looks like nintendo. Better help? Users call the help desk. 64 bit? Big deal...

-Intelligent User Interface
-Comprehensive Digital Media Support
-Greater Application and Device Compatibility
-Enhanced File and Print Services
-Improved Networking and Communications
-Integrated Help and Support Services
-Improved Mobile Computing
-Reliability Improvements
-Stronger Security Protections
-Easier Manageability
-64-Bit Support
-Looking Forward: The Microsoft .NET Platform

MS lifecycle says it has to be

[Bad to the Ben]

It has to be released then according to MS: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default .mspx

Check out the table. Notice how the licencing end dates run out at the end of this year for OEMs and next year for system builders? Longhorn has to fill that spot or the contracts need to be renegotiated.

Not only that

[Mr. Underbridge]

WinXP is laid out all screwy too, makes it really hard to configure or use. I don't think it's any more stable either. Also, the "eye candy" you refer to is absolutely garish - it's like they got a retarded monkey to try to imitate Mac OSX. First thing I did on my work computer (which is XP unfortunately) was switch the style to classic to save my eyes and some of my sanity.

MS are in a bit of a pickle really

[zoney_ie]

With the eye-candy disabled, XP is just a more up-to-date Win2K - just as stable/unstable really.

The interesting thing is - what % of businesses are XP? Even if MS get some of the Win2K people to go to XP - how are they going to get the XP people to go to Longhorn? It isn't going to happen extensively!!! MS are actually possibly more screwed (at least in terms of getting people to Longhorn) if they get Win2K people to go to XP at this stage.

And it's still long time to wait for direct Win2K -> Longhorn upgrades (2 years? More? -including evaluation/install time for businesses).