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83% of Businesses Won't Bother With Windows 7
Olipro writes "Most enterprises stated they won't bother with Windows 7 for at least a year as they simply continue to distrust that compatibility issues won't occur with their mission-critical software ... The Million Dollar question will be whether the fact that XP upgrades to Windows 7 requires a clean install will prove to be Microsoft's undoing." I suspect that will change before they actually release the OS.
why upgrade when the current software provides everything you need
...MS hasn't often demonstrated an ability to make major functioning software improvements at the last minute. I suppose we'll see, though.
First it's 84% of IT pros and now it's 83% of businesses? Might have something to do with these surveys being carried out on a submission basis, where the only people who respond are a minority that are either passionate "must-have-the-latest-version" fanatics or passionate "anything-other-than-XP-sucks" fanatics. The apathetic majority isn't taken into account.
Most enterprises stated they won't bother with Windows 7 for at least a year as they simply continue to distrust that compatibility issues won't occur with their mission-critical software...
First off, whoever edited that sentence needs to get a clue-by-four -- "distrust that issues won't occur" is just terrible English.
About the content, why would any IT person ever have to resort to "trust" anyone for their software compatibility? You'd almost think they can't grab a VM image of Windows7 and test their software to see if there are compatibility issues.
If I were a CIT and someone came up to me with this dribble, I would tell them to build a testbed and actually report on compatibility issues, possible savings, and so forth. Windows 7 probably won't be worth the money but deciding that before you actual evaluate it is madness.
I've been working in software development for 35 years. No company I've ever worked at jumps on new versions of Windows, they all have a policy of waiting at least until SP1 regardless of whether its an improvement or not.
The only news here is that the figure is that 17% might move straight away. From my own experiences I would have thought nearly all, if not all companies would wait at least a year.
Isn't this basically the exact same story Slashdot ran before Windows Vista was released? Guess what guys: Businesses tend to be conservative by nature, and aren't going to do a massive upgrade without a good plan. For any reasonably large business, it will take several months to certify all of their internal software with any new OS release, not to mention the actual time it takes to execute the switch. They would be saying the same thing if you asked them when they would be switching from RHEL 5 to RHEL 6.
No kidding. I don't know how most businesses are run, but around these parts, XP works, and works well. We don't need any of the features of Vista or 7. Vista has a pretty undeserved bad reputation, and 7 looks like a really good OS, but we're not switching to either until our tools for Windows whatever is as robust and what we currently have for XP....
Often, that clean install makes for a much faster system after years of cruft building up on a system.
Although there may be compatibility issues, MS making a clean install mandatory might be one of the most clever marketing tools they've had in a while. Then again, it could backfire.
Word of mouth from those who migrate and see how fast a clean build of Win7 is vs XP might breathe new life into the Windows brand.
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This is nothing new, so why is this news? Most businesses are not early adopters of technology and usually wait until SP1 comes out. DUH! This has nothing to do with VISTA, and has nothing to do with ME. Even hardware companies get the same deal. Businesses that need to keep mission critical systems up will not want to buy the latest and greatest until it has gone through a bunch of patches. Also, let's not forget, that buying software (and hardware to run it) as an early adopter = bigger price tag. Wait a year and things will be about 50% cheaper - which in a business can mean LOTS of money.
I wonder if this questionnaire took into account businsses that got Vista. Most likely these companies will not upgrade at all since they just spent a ton of money on Vista. This article is flawed and fails to be news. Wait, it's anti-MS bashing so it is news here.
If software/hardware companies want more early adopters they need to offer substantial discounts. For example "Be the first 25,000 to order our stuff within the first three months and get 50% off software, and 15% off hardware". That will get you more early adopters.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Sure my main computer is on XP. I am running OSX Tiger at home and I won't be upgrading to Leopard any time soon. My other computer runs Mandriva 2007. No upgrades either for me. It works. At work I use Vista. What I'm saying is: MS or not: the time where people used to literally stay in line to upgrade an OS are over. Nobody (but a few nerds) cares about that anymore. Ans even some nerds like me have more important things with their lifes to do.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Another reason is training and support. Vista and Windows 7 are so much more different from Windows XP. If someone calls "Tech Support", tech support will have to have a completely different script/list for Windows 7.
:).
In comparison Windows XP is more similar to Windows 2000 (and Windows XP in "classic mode" is vey similar).
Actually now would be a great time for a Windows XP compatible operating system.
If someone could come up with a decent Windows XP compatible O/S, Microsoft could lose significant market share. Might get even more interesting if it supports DirectX 10
This is, of course, precisely the reason so many big companies still use COBOL, right?
Legacy is a powerful force in industry. It is often perceived that the cost of maintaining the old systems is less than the cost of replacing it, especially when you consider compatibility, debugging, reliability, down time, retraining, infrastructure upgrades, policy changes, etc. etc.
Here's your choice: Stick with what you have. Although it can be a real pain in the ass, at least you're used to it after all these years and can handle the quirks to keep things running. OR you can spend a whole lot of money to scrap everything and start over with a totally new setup that's one big question mark all around, especially when the vendor's reputation is losing ground.
Questionable surveying methods aside, it is not difficult to imagine companies aren't too keen to jump on board.
XP is old. And MS would love to retire it, but the industry is getting fed up with their shenanigans. The individual homeowner might not have the purchasing power to hurt them, but big companies with thousands of licenses do - MS will either give them what they want (which is, apparently, XP) or they will lose the customers.
=Smidge=
There is a difference between what is good for the IT market and what is good for business in general. Us IT crowd want to push the latest new thing, for some this means mark up on s/ware, others it is more consultancy. What a business wants is a stable IT system that does what the business needs in a stable way -- boring, not sexy. Once applications are written they stay written; the will be changed when the business requirements change, not because the computer systems change.
MS is also caught up in the sales/upgrades treadmill - to not do so would badly damage its bottom line. What is in the best interests of MS is not in the best interests of its customers.
Linux is based on 35+ years old Unix, I regularly use programs that are essentially unchanged since I wrote them for System V Unix 25 years ago. How old a system is is not an issue unless you need to make money by flogging your customers new versions. In this regard Unix/Linux is a better platform for companies than MS Windows systems.
As an IT Manager for a small company, I have no reason to move off of XP. Until I am forced, I will not migrate to Vista or 7. There just is no compelling reason to do so. More and more I seek to take functionality AWAY from the desktop.
I suspect that I am going to get karmically beaten up for this, but here goes...
People keep trying to move applications from the desktop to the web. In many cases, the web is the right medium for those apps. In most though, its not. My general rule of thumb is this: When trying to develop something as a web app, if you find that you are trying to reproduce desktop app behavior, you are doing the wrong thing.
Eventually, we are going to have to pay the piper (in terms of maintenance cost) for web apps with all the convoluted hacks necessary to make them look and feel like desktop apps. Let's start collectively applying some common sense - the web when its the right thing, and the desktop where it fits best.
Unless you're talking about data intensive apps like video editing, DTP and the like, most business software is incredibly mundane. The vast majority of cubicle dwellers do not need anything more than a well designed web app. Data entry hardly requires a fat client.
Actually the comparison is rather apt. You have a system that they are reluctant to replace. A good deal of those COBOL systems still run on 70's era hardware, although advances in virtualization are helping there a lot.
The industry has no choice since they cannot force MS to supply XP. What if MS doesn't?
How many times has MS buckled under industry pressure to keep offering XP already? At least twice, but I haven't really been counting. They might do it in an indirect manner ("downgrades") but they only do that to obscure how many people are actually buying their latest product.
If they don't? There might be a lawsuit in there somewhere. Moving to *nix is one possible alternative: If a company will be FORCED to change their *anything*, why would they so readily go with the vendor that just screwed them over? The hurdle is getting them to change at all - once you're past that there is no guarantee they'll change to what you want.
Especially if their applications aren't compatible. If Win7 isn't backwards compatible with applications and drivers written for XP, they'll have to rewrite everything... and at that point they could pretty easily rewrite it for any other platform.
The industry can't force MS to supply XP, but MS can't force the industry to use Win7 either. MS can give their biggest customers what they want or lose them as customers, just like they have been doing. MS will offer XP until there are so few XP users left they can afford to flip them off entirely. NT 4 was supported until three years ago. 2000 is going to be supported until at least the end of 2010. Windows 3.1 was supported up until last November - lasted over 16 years.
Also, one key problem here is the phrase "better tech" - is Vista really better than XP? In ways that businesses really care about? "Newer" is not a synonym for "better."
=Smidge=
One could also say, " don't know how most businesses are run, but around these parts, XP works, and works well." followed by, "we don't need the features of Linux [or Mac OS X or insert your favorite OS here])". This is part of the problem with getting alternative OS adoption.