Most Companies Won't Deploy Windows 7 — Survey

angry tapir writes "Nearly six in 10 companies have no current plans to deploy Windows 7 by the end of next year, according to a new survey. Of 1,100 IT administrators who responded to the survey, 59.3 percent said they didn't have a plan to deploy Windows 7. (Full results, PDF.)"

Comments

I'll deploy Win7

[EmagGeek]

When XP support ends in 2014. By then, Win7 will have been shaken out.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[Anonymous Coward]

Promises?! Here in Kang's tiberium mine, we prefer to call them "obamas". Kodos 2012!

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[value_added]

I love that optimism man, I guess you one of the guys that still vote for politicians on the basis of the promises they give!

Excellent analogy, but for a slightly different reason.

By the time we recognise that the current elected official sucks, there's an election right around the corner. That election not only offer promises of the new, but also allows us to forget the failures of the past.

The trouble with Microsoft is that we end up electing the same guy every time.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[infolation]

we don't see any point in replacing the existing OS considering the time and costs involved.

The summary implies 59.3% not using Win7 by end 2010. But if 40.7% are using it by then, that would be a spectacular takeup.

The time and cost to replace existing installations with Win7 decrease over time. When total cost of deployment is less than the savings resulting from the use of Win7, a company will switch. The article is simply quantifying the date at which 40% estimate this will happen.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[recoiledsnake]

But 34 percent said they expected to deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010, with 5.4 percent expected to install the OS by the end of the year.

Actually, if you ask me, the real news is that a full 34% is going to deploy Windows 7. That's a pretty big number for corporate deployments, see how slow transition was from 2K to XP.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[numbski]

If you say so. I'm at a military manufacturing facility, and there are no plans to move away from XP ever. In fact we're more likely to move onto Linux than go to Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[jac89]

Okay first of all windows 7 works on PCs that are relatively underpowered (netbooks), and if you have a computer less than 3 years old it should be able to run vista.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[TheLinuxSRC]

This is very similar to the situation I am in. I currently head IT for a dot-com. Our plan is to replace desktop machines with Linux or OSX depending on job function (writers/sales get Linux, graphics guys get Macs). We have absolutely no intention of "upgrading" _anything_ to Vista/7.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[MightyMartian]

We bumped most of our computers up to Vista this spring, and while, for the most part, it hasn't been too bad, there are still many little idiosyncrasies. Vista has stabilized, that's for sure, but I'd hardly call it as quality an OS as XP (despite the fact that it does have some nifty features). As to Windows 7, well there's just no way in hell we're going to be doing any upgrades to it in the foreseeable future. The next round of upgrades aren't reasonably scheduled for another three or four years, so I suppose then we might bump up, unless we decide to go open source (which we may, I'm certainly moving away from Microsoft on the server front to save the company a significant amount of money in license fees). I've got a few years to figure it all out,

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[Xemu]

When total cost of deployment is less than the savings resulting from the use of Win7, a company will switch.

In other words: Not until Win XP is no longer a viable choice.

There are no savings resulting from the use of Win7. There are only migration and implementation costs.

Most enterprises have their apps certified on the XP platform. It takes hundreds if not thousands of man hours to update and verify functionality of each app. Not to mention that many enterprise applications such as SAP or Cisco does not support 64-bit Windows 7. 64-bit support for all enterprise apps is a dead-sure requirement for any enterprise considering a full upgrade to Win 7.

  For a typical enterprise with 2000 deployed applications, this turns into a migration nightmare. The budget runs into the millions.

Note that migration cost for enterprises have nothing to do with windows 7 licensing. The software assurance means they're paying for windows 7 already, but prefer to stay on Windows XP just in order to avoid said migration costs.

I don't think we'll see wide-spread deployment of windows 7 until 2012-2013.
"Sales" in 2010 will probably look OK though due to software assurance.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[Hurricane78]

A millitary (manufacturing) facility, running XP?
Does nobody think that this is pretty scary in itself?

Imagine the displays there showing the infamous Playmobil design, and in front of it a big colorful set of buttons that honk when you hit/push them.
And you suddenly have to think of the movie Idiocracy. ^^

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[torkus]

I call BS on your BS. There ARE benefits to W7 however they fail to balance the large cost of upgrading in a corporate environment (which, mind you, is what this article is about).

Vista still has major bugs. They have NOT all been fixed - many have just been hacked around so they're less painful. I mean, seriously, who releases a new OS that is hideously slow just doing a basic file copy. Any PR flack MS got over vista they deserve 10x over. Only their complete refusal to admit to reality and millions of dollars spend on advertising kept it from being the biggest joke of the decade.

Our refusal to upgrade is NOT

a) based any way on 'shinyness'. In fact, the fewer things my staff have to tinker with, the better.

b) because of some unfounded fear of new ways of doing things. Instead consider having to re-train 1000's of employees (or 100x that even bigger companies) because MS decided to move icons, menus, labels, etc. around. It's not rocket science, but then again plenty of computer-using employees are far from computer guru's. Training cost and time lost figuring things out, getting lost in menus, and so on gets very expensive. Why change when the "old way" actually works quite well?

c) If a global company with global brand recognition, a WAN spanning a dozen+ countries, thousands of corporate clients is a limited world please do tell me what I'm missing. Granted we aren't hooked up to the ISS. But still. Security upgrades are handy but UAC is still not a substitute for proper rights management. Memory management ... is this DOS 6.x and Win 3.11? Improved network stacks...?! I know some ultra-high-demand, ultra-low-latency situations where this DOES matter but none of those computers are running Windows.

So other than misplaced belief in new security (the biggest security flaw exists between the chair and keyboard at any given desk) and some nifty CONSUMER-ORIENTED things there's direct little benefit to W7 as of yet.

I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[wjh31]

but that dosnt mean 6/10 wont deploy it. I imagine plenty of those are just waiting to see how well or not it plays out for other companies. If 7 Manages everything it promises, im sure plenty will turn to 7 in the end

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[jellomizer]

I am still waiting for what Microsoft Promised me for Windows 95.

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[Opportunist]

You must be new here. When did MS delivering what it promises have anything to do whether management decides it's time for an "upgrade"?

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[Endo13]

Exactly. This article and summary should both be tagged troll. The only actual news here is that 34% of the companies surveyed already have plans to have it deployed by the end of next year and it's not even released yet!

Now I'm no huge fan of Microsoft, but I'd guess this is about their best pre-release effort ever. They have definitely done some things right this time around.

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[Gay for Linux]

We have no _CURRENT_ plans to deploy Windows 7. You're completely missing the point here. They may not be planning it RIGHT NOW but they're going to see how things turn out. That's not "skip completely."

So in 3 months

[Norsefire]

It's gone from 83% that won't to 59.3%.

Based on that, if MS wait nine months there will be people buying two copies.

Re:So in 3 months

[falckon]

By extrapolating, in two years people will be buying five copies. I guess Windows 7 will finally be the prize winning cash cow Microsoft has been dying to create!

Re:So in 3 months

[Anonymous Coward]

t's gone from 83% that won't to 59.3%.

Based on that, if MS wait nine months there will be people buying two copies.

We get stories like this every time MS releases a new OS. There are the occasional flops like Windows ME and Vista that don't see widespread enterprise deployment but despite the universal predictions of doom you get each time most of them actually do end up being widely used in businesses. Examples include: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP, I remember all sorts of columnists, bloggers and other speculators crawling out of the woodwork and predicting businesses wouldn't use them. Particularly Windows 2000 and Windows XP who turned out to be widely used regardless.

Re:So in 3 months

[Kythe]

We get stories like this every time MS releases a new OS.

And every time we get these stories, we also hear "we get these stories every time MS releases a new OS," along with predictions that the new OS will see just as high an adoption rate as the most successful of MS's OS releases. I recall the exact same predictions for Vista (which you yourself note was a flop). Honestly, I think success is a little less than certain at this point.

I almost pity Microsoft.

[millia]

It's got to be tough. You can't kill off XP like you want to, because people really really might leave. But it looks foolish to support that morass of code in spite of the NEW morass you've spent all that money on.

In the long run, they'll switch. Until everything becomes a webapp, the ecosystem almost demands it. Here's hoping people realize webapps are where it's at, for most things.

You don't need a plan

[Hognoxious]

You don't need a plan - it'll install itself automatically via windows update. And then automatically rat on you for piracy.

6 in 10?

[lisabeeren]

6 in 10? not a very big sample!

Still using IE6

[Rik Sweeney]

We still have IE6 installed by default at work. The reason we haven't upgraded is because it'd break some of the applications and they don't want the headache of having to retest the application (that's the excuse anyway), so we're stuck with it.

I expect we won't be moving to Windows 7 any time soon either, XP works fine and not only would they have to spend money on the upgrade, but they'd have to re-train everyone.

Re:Still using IE6

[BVis]

Chances are if someone's participating in a discussion on Slashdot, they're probably pretty technically savvy and don't require much training to adapt to a new but similar OS. Remember though, that most users are complete drooling, mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, blithering idiots, where if the task bar or splash screen looks different, they immediately switch off their brains because they can't handle the change. These are the people that will require "training", or else they'll refuse to do their jobs because they "don't know the new system."

Personally all the training I think they should require is "READ THE FUCKING SCREEN, IDIOT", but that's just me.

Talk about a misleading title

[gambit3]

"Have No current Plans" != "Won't Deploy"

Two years ago, my company had "No Current Plans" to move our MS Applications to their 2007 versions, but here we are, with Office/Exchange/Sharepoint all 2007.

"No Current Plans" may just mean just that... they don't have any plans. That's a far stretch from "we won't".

Re:Talk about a misleading title

[Iftekhar25]

Mod parent up.

This survey means absolutely nothing. It was taken before Microsoft announced a release date, and that means it's no longer relevant.

Considering that, the number is quite strong.

Windows 7 has a lot of mindshare as "Microsoft [finally] gets it right."

I don't mind burning some karma here, but you gotta call it like you see it.

Re:Their loss

[Norsefire]

6 in 10 companies don't want to needlessly spend money and wish to continue using software that does what they need.

Re:Their loss

[John Hasler]

What does 7 have that they need and don't have with XP? Does your company replace all the furniture every time Herman Miller comes out with a new line?

oh here we go with mainframe vs pc again..

[tjstork]

In the long run, they'll switch. Until everything becomes a webapp, the ecosystem almost demands it. Here's hoping people realize webapps are where it's at, for most things.

It's interesting, in that, so many people of the current generation see webapps and centralized computing as the new best thing.

See, some of us old people got into the PC revolution when we were kids because we were rebelling against centralized computing. We hated the account quotas and slowness of shared system resources in college, the straightjackets around information, and we wanted to smash all of that. We saw that giving people power tools like spreadsheets and desktop databases empowered them over the static mainframe systems of old, that a computer was something that you owned, was, well, a personal thing.

Quite frankly, if it wasn't for ISPs being such a PITA about bandwidth for uploads and hosting, and if, honestly, there was more adoption of IPv6 so that everyone could have their own address, we would see a lot more desktop to the internet hosting. A quadcore PC could easily host a blog or a facebook account. Indeed, I would be the next killer application would be a desktop app that lets you do what facebook does, except that you own your data, and the core web service is really only a directory to enable peer to peer communications.

Re:Does it Run Linux?

[Norsefire]

No, but it runs XP.

Dear Corporations,

[Centurix]

Dear lovely Corporation,

Here's a new operating system for you. Awfully sorry about the whole Vista thing, won't happen again.

Love,

Bill and Steve.

Wait... just Steve now.

PS. The Windows 7 Corporate Mega Edition will come with a free chair.

Re:SP2 Syndrome

[Octorian]

Except "Windows 7" is really just Vista SP3 :-)
(okay, Vista is NT 6.0, Win7 is NT 6.1)

no surprise

[owlnation]

The interesting figure here isn't the 6/10. It's the 4/10. I'd have to question the sanity of that 40%.

This is not a bash at MS. It is just prudent IT policy, and good business not to use untested software in mission critical environments. No new OS, from anyone, is guaranteed to be mission critical in its first year of release.

Most business do not upgrade entire systems often. There's plenty that have only switched to XP from 200 in the past 5 years.

There's plenty of bespoke programs and macros that run on every enterprise system. It takes at least a year to figure out how a new OS will work with those. That's not even counting driver issues, hardware issues, and bugs.

Plus there's a productivity issue with switching OS. Do you really want to slow down your staff during a recession?

But specifically for Windows 7, why switch? What is the competitive advantage of doing so? There's no real performance gain. There's no real new features that aren't just bling. Sure, it's a bit more secure, but any IT dept has cobbled something together and locked down XP enough for it to work reasonably well.

No, sorry, I'd have to question the business decision of any company that is going to introduce a new OS that will cost them money, productivity, and still have kinks and bugs in it at this early stage in its release.

In 3-5 years, after much internal testing, sure it would make sense. But right now -- corporate suicide.

Re:no surprise

[asylumx]

"Plans to upgrade" does not mean "Going to upgrade as soon as it's released." I'd say it's actually rather smart to have *PLANS* of how to handle this upgrade very early on, that way when you have users asking for it, you can tell them very easily what will have to happen before you'll upgrade them.

If you say "I'm waiting until SP2" like a lot of people have already said... guess what, you have plans.

Really, this article is incredibly anti-newsworthy but let's face it, it's spun in a way that makes MS look bad and that's really all it takes to make it on Slashdot, right?

Re:Why would they?

[lorenlal]

I must be getting older.

It doesn't matter what they call it, it's still not as fast, and with a small a footprint as XP?

I remember saying the same thing about XP in regards to Windows 2000... "It's exactly the same, but with a lego-land interface, and a firewall that won't let you use the apps you want, but allows all the viruses in. It's bloated and slow. I want nothing to do with it if I can avoid it."

Then XP SP2 came out: "Well, it's still bloated, but with new hardware it's not bad... At least we can make exceptions to allow our apps to access the network finally. Too bad it has double the footprint of SP1."

Funny how Vista (and a few years) changed our perspective so much... Because it was such a resource hog, it made XP seem tiny.

How is this new? How does this article not fail?

[furby076]

Most companies refuse to upgrade their systems to a new product (at least major product) unless there is 1) pressure from the top, 2) The hardware vendor only sells with that software, 3) a service patch has been released, or 4) they receive such an unbelievable discount it borders on payola.

This is nothing new. This happened with windows NT, XP, 2003, Vista and it will continue to happen. Though most people who have tried windows 7 have stated they loved it. I've had it installed for months now and I have not experienced a single crash and my laptop is running faster with windows 7 then it did vista.

Wait until windows 7 is out for 6 months, has it's first patch and then come out with an verifiable/reliable article saying this information.

Re:Their loss

[ae1294]

Does your company replace all the furniture every time Herman Miller comes out with a new line?

Of coarse!

AIG,INC

Re:Why would they?

[thedonger]

Employees are very happy with XP and cringe at change. So many complaints about the ribbon etc. when upgrading to Office 2007. Businesses will change to appease the management, not the employees.

Businesses will also change to appease Microsoft when suddenly they are found to not be abiding by the terms of the license, and the more cost-effective avenue is, interestingly enough, upgrade to [Office 2007|Win 7|Server 2008|etc].

In general, money talks. Businesses probably won't upgrade unless there is significant money to save, or there are feature or security enhancements they need.

Where's the business case?

[schwit1]

How will Windows 7 or Office 2010 increase revenue or reduce expenses.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/windows-microsofts-red-headed-stepchild-075?page=0,1&source=IFWNLE_nlt_blogs_2009-07-13

From the article ...
"I recently spoke with an IT manager who was budgeting for an Office 2010 upgrade from Office 2003. I casually asked him what features he had deemed important enough to justify a $100,000 budget item. He thought for a minute and admitted that he couldn't think of a single one. So I asked the logical follow-up: Why are you buying it? He had no answer for that either. The $100,000 line item disappeared. He's also sticking with XP."

99.9% of businesses.....

[heffrey]

In other news, 99.9% of businesses have no plans to install Linux clients.

No MS peaked with Win 2k

[blahbooboo]

Kind of sad that Microsoft peaked with XP SP2, no?

Too funny. XP was not at all their peak. It was the start of the DECLINE. You want a great fast and lean OS that stayed out of the user's way, look at Win 2k.

Everyone on Slashdot harps on XP like it's this great OS, but it is NOT. I remember everyone here bitching about how about XP was compared to 2k (i.e. dog ass slow in comparison etc).

Frankly, if MS would have added decent USB support to Windows 2k, I would never have switched to XP.

History lesson

[Sockatume]

They've gone through the same thing with each version of Windows that's been released. In 2003, less than 10% of corporate PCs were carrying XP. In 2005, it had only gone up to 38%. That's an OS that'd been out for more than three years, and was up against the incumbent Win2000. If Win7 can hit about 40% within a year against an incumbent XP, then that's actually incredible progress.

Promises they will keep

[PinkyDead]

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer promised me something a long time ago.

And this is one delivery they won't miss.

Affectionately yours,
Satan.

Re:SP2 Syndrome

[value_added]

And XP is 5.1. It's just a number to deal with crappy program version number compatibility.

LOL. You don't get it, do you?

Windows 9x (DOS) ... Windows ME (DOS)
Windows NT (NT3.1) ... Windows NT (NT3.5)
Windows NT (NT4.0)
Windows 2000 (NT5.0) ... XP (NT5.1)
Windows Vista (NT6.0) ... Windows 7 (NT6.1)

If you can't recognise the incremental changes in the DOS line, or the similarly incremental changes in the different NT lines, than I'd suggest looking a bit more closely. By incremental, I'm referring to both version numbers and the OS itself.