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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.
Mainstream support for XP ended last week. It's dead, Jim.
2003 to 2009 is longer than any version of Ubuntu is supported. It's had a nice life. Shoot it in the head, and move on :-)
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.
Microsoft has announced the infrastructure for its cloud computing service Azure, formerly (and presently) Windows Vapor.
"We want to be more responsive to your needs," said Sam Ramji of Microsoft during a Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit panel this week as he wiped rotten tomatoes off his suit.
"We want all open source innovation to happen on Windows 7. In practice, Windows is too slow, and just putting Linux underneath the same software stack triples performance. So we're running the Windows versions of the software on Linux using Wine. We'll also be funding the Wine on Windows initiative."
The new Microsoft Amazingly Open And Genuine Public License allows you complete freedom to use, modify and redistribute the software provided that every copy comes with a DVD of Windows Vista Ultimate, you acknowledge that Microsoft's FAT patent protects a remarkable and valuable innovation in computer science and all accompanying documentation is in OOXML. Also, all your data belongs to Microsoft.
The overwhelming dominance of Microsoft was assured, he said, pointing to their success in paying netbook manufacturers to use Windows XP and paying US retailers not to stock the Linux versions of the computers. "We're also enforcing our patent on right-clicking. And on the number seven."
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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....
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.
The Million Dollar answer is "no". Because when you upgrade a corporate desktop, you don't upgrade in place. You create an image and you reimage your desktops en masse. Anyway, Microsoft will find a way to spur Windows 7 adoption, probably by making Windows XP slower with a required security update again.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't see anywhere that says upgrading to Windows 7 is going to require a clean install. The only thing that came close was the article last week where Microsoft said they wanted people to clean install the RC instead of trying to upgrade to the RC from the Windows 7 beta .
Also, don't most people want to do a clean install of a major OS version?
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
It's almost funny. Linux can't beat microsoft. But why bother ?
In the department of "clobbering microsoft" the one organisation that's really doing some damage is microsoft.
Perhaps we just need to wait a few years.
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. There are applications we use that require us to use Windows on the workstation, but more and more we look to web apps to meet our core business needs.
The fact is there is nothing in Vista that makes me want to move to it. There are no problems with XP that are making me look for solutions. We are in the process of locking down workstations to the point that even the security concerns become irrelevant. If you asked me what killer feature would make me switch... I couldn't think of it. Certainly not in what I have seen so far.
The only thing that will make me switch is the unavailability of the OS. And even that would take a while. We order standard model PCs, and do disk imaging. If I found out about Dell not being able to offer XP to us any longer, I'd make one last order for 20 PCs of that model, image and be set for two years.
Bottom line is that XP (heck even 2000) meets the needs of most businesses. Microsoft would (and likely will) have to force us to switch. Why screw with what works?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's called ReactOS.
Just don't expect it to be 'finished' for some time.
Yes, this is new. This is companies holding out on two releases of Windows for a significant time and in larger and larger numbers. Of course a small number of companies still run Windows 2000 or even older, it's a very small percentage compared to the data in this survey. Windows 7 really adds nothing significantly new to Vista, it's basically Vista SP2, but MS is rushing it out in order to get a new name on it to try to sweep all the bad PR from Vista under the rug. What this data is showing is that the strategy may not work as intended. While the article didn't specifically give the numbers of respondents that are planning to wait on 7 that had skipped Vista, based on how high the numbers are for those that are planning to wait for a significant amount of time on Vista, and how low the adoption rates of Vista have been, it is clear there are more companies than ever that are holding off on MS's products and more of them than before are skipping one of MS's releases and holding off on the next one. This survey with a large number of responses and thus more validity than your average junk survey is the first to confirm what many people had been suspecting.
Oh by the way, here's a single page link
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.
ya, give Microsoft a chance since they haven't been at this OS release business for very long.
If you really want to go with someone who's had lots of OS release experience, go with Linux and specifically Ubuntu. They have had 10 OS releases already under their belt and their first release was just 5 years ago. Not only that, when they release, they release not only the OS and desktop but also include thousands of applications and drivers with each release. Microsoft only releases their OS and a much smaller set of drivers and applications with their releases so they're no so experienced at it. In about 5 or 10 years they might have the process down but until then, go with someone with more experience. ;-)
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus