Less Than 2 Percent of UK Companies Have Upgraded Windows

Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that less than 2% of UK-based firms have already upgraded all their desktops to Windows Vista. Just shy of 5% said that they have begun a Windows Vista desktop upgrade program. 6.5% said they will upgrade in the next 6 months; 12.6% in the next 12 months; 13% in the next 18 months; and 18% in the next two years. That means that within two years from now, only 56% of survey respondents say they will have upgraded their firm's desktops to Windows Vista. 'In terms of retail sales of Vista in a box, Ballmer said he believes most of that up-tick is concentrated in the first few months of the software going on sale. He doubted that this would carry over into Microsoft's fiscal 2008, which began in July 2007. Analyst estimates for fiscal 2008 growth in Microsoft's client business unit, which includes Vista, is around the 9% mark. Ballmer said that analysts should consider that rather than creating huge spurts of new growth "a new Windows release is primarily a chance to sustain the revenue we have".'"

Comments

No surprise

[PlatyPaul]

Given that there hasn't been a hard push for Vista for U.K. businesses (and that some vendors have been encouraging their customers to wait), this is not a particularly big surprise. It's just too risky while Vista is this new.

If you take a risk with a new operating system at home and it doesn't work out, you may be out some cash. If you did it across your business, you may be out of a job (and a company, for that matter!).

Re:Windows 2000

[morgan_greywolf]

Ditto. At home, I use Windows 2000 virtualized under QEMU with the kqemu virtualizer on Ubuntu, and let me tell you -- no other Windows OS runs as well...it has much lower overhead than even XP, supports virtually all apps that have been released since Windows XP, and it runs nice and fast -- near-native speed -- under QEMU/kqemu on reasonably modern hardware.

Works great for the handful of Windows apps that I still use.