It seems businesspeople are an unforgiving bunch. Just because Microsoft released windows vista before it was finished and with limited driver support for their office machines, the majority of corporates have stuck with windows XP as as their desktop operating system.
Windows Vista on just 12% of corporate desktops!
Windows vista today is actually a better OS than when it was released around 18 months ago, but it accounts for just 12% of corporate desktop operating systems; with windows XP enjoying a huge 86% share. Vista’s share of the market seems even worse, when you consider how many desktop PC’s were bought in the last year and a half, with a version of vista pre-installed!
From Windows XP to Windows 7
These figures, from Forrester Research, suggest that many organisations will leapfrog windows vista completely and go straight from windows XP to Windows 7 (which went RTM yesterday.)
Ironically, those corporates that have already upgraded to vista, will find that the transition to windows 7 is easier from vista, than it is from XP. The driver issues still associated with vista are largely bogus now and compatibility between vista and windows 7 is already very good.
What about OS X then?
Mac OS X is now on 3.6 of business desktops; up from 2.7% last year.
Related posts:
Like we know it sucks but i still feel many will stick to XP over trying a OS that is mostly Vista lite.
Testing has been good but we still have the factor of Win7 with all the junk that comes with most systems. Beta and Demo software and all could still bring Win7 to the same end that Vista met.
I still not happy with the many version to be released as they did with vista and o no real upgrade version for XP owners that isn’t going to take time to do.
in business time is money system go down and money is lost. the vista owner will not have to deal with this but heck most have Vista Home as they didn’t want to spend the money Vista Business or they didn’t know or care what was on the system just that it did the job.
I can’t say i will miss vista I never seen this many people willing to jump to new OS from MS since ME came out.
GC
You make a very good point about how Win7 will run, once the manufacturers pack it with ’shovel-ware’. I also think MS are asking too much for Win7, given that many consider it to be a big service pack for vista!
Okay, the business version of Vista is by far the worst. It has to be said. 40 GBS! 40 GBs of space this thing will take up on your computer. I run a mac and I need Bootcamp to be able run Windows. If I ran XP, not a problem, it’ll only take up like a gb of space. If I run Vista Business, It takes up literally all of my hard drive. People I am running a 150 gbs hard drive machine, I need something that won’t eat my space up. I think I’m going to have to go back to XP. Thank God I still have XP Home basic.
I have used and installed on my family’s and friend’s computers the following OS’s over the years:
Windows 3.11 for Workgroups
Windows 95 OSR2 (yes, I waited!)
Windows 98
Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows ME (yes, ME)
Windows XP (then SP1, SP2, and now SP3)
I have always gone through every couple of years and backed up documents, etc, and done clean installs with the latest hardware drivers, etc, for all of these Microsoft OS’s. They all worked better than the previous OS.
Remarkably, I didn’t have ANY issues with Windows ME, which I know is *rare*, due to the grief I hear from pretty much everyone else. Maybe it is because I always did “clean installs”, and made sure that the computer had 64MB of RAM. (Anything less and Windows ME did kinda run slowly.)
This pattern stopped with Windows Vista. Windows Vista, even on BRAND NEW top-of-the-line machines (like my Dell XPS M1530 with 4GB RAM, 7200rpm Hard Drive, Intel Core 2 Duo 9500, etc), ran like SLUDGE. Slow, unreponsive, buggy — a complete DEBACLE and an utter TRAVESTY.
People complained, and even I couldn’t stand using it. So, OUT went Vista, and back ON went Windows XP SP3. And, let me tell you, after living with Vista for a month or two, going back to XP was like upgrading your car from a Yugo to a Porsche! INSTANTLY 10x faster. Clicking on something seemed to pop up a menu before you even finished the click. I couldn’t believe the difference.
Windows XP SP3 is simply the best, fastest, most reliable OS Microsoft has ever produced. The sad truth is, it takes Microsoft seven years to finally get an OS “right”. And I’m not a Mac fanatic at all. In fact, as I stated above, I have been a Microsoft user since my first PC in 1991 (ah, good old DOS.) But, Microsoft DROPPED THE BALL with Vista. I’m sorry, but as far as my experiences go, Vista is WORSE THAN Windows “ME”.
I have high hopes for Windows 7, despite the fact that unfortunately, it is based on Windows Vista (as in version 6.1 over version 6.0). I feel like Vista is such a terrible code base, they should have started completely from scratch again. But, maybe around Windows 7 SP12, in the year 2014, they’ll have as good an OS as XP is nowadays. Hey, by then, computers will have the 512 GB of RAM and the 20GHz 8-core CPUs needed to run the Vista code base!! (Ok, I’m half joking. I know, I know, supposedly they’ve tweaked Windows 7 to not be such a resource hog! Time will tell.)
I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely horrible Windows Vista is. I was psyched for it after the 5-year wait. After getting through the eye candy, it pretty much sucked and made computing a miserable experience. And I’m a power user!!! You can imagine how my non-tech friends felt! They couldn’t even figure out simple tasks! Why would you make a newer OS *harder* to use than the previous one??? What a humungous letdown.
Early tests with Windows 7 look more promising. Maybe after a couple of years, that will be the next OS to go on these machines. But for now, I will stick with the blazingly-fast, rock-hardened stable, time-tested mature OS called Windows XP SP3.
Don’t let the M$ freaks tell you otherwise. I have high-spec machines, and Vista blew chunks. You shouldn’t have to have a $10,000 gaming rig to run a MAINSTREAM Operating System at acceptable speeds. Heck, you should even be able to use middle-of-the-road configurations on such an OS if Microsoft is positioning it to be in the Home.
And, finally, Vista added insult to injury by their GREEDY pricing scheme. Vista was MORE expensive than XP for the same feature set. Why would you pay MORE for your computer to perform LESS?? We’ve gotten so used to software costing MORE than the hardware it runs on!!! MS-DOS was less than $100, as were early versions of Windows. In fact, Windows 95 was only $99 as an upgrade to Windows 3.1. And that contained ALL of the features! (Yes, Plus! added extra themes and such for a few $$$ more, but not critical features.) To get all of the features that they added to Vista, you have to pay a LOT of extra $$$$.
If they were SMART, Windows 7 should cost $99, PERIOD. And maybe Windows 7 Ultimate would be $149. That should be IT. Microsoft is greedy and is paying the price. Nearly 70% of computers still run Windows XP. And I agree, Windows 7 will most likely cannibalize the Windows Vista user base more than eat up XP. Who wants to spend $300 on an OS???? You can buy an entire Netbook for that price!
While I am not a Mac user in any way, I do own an iPhone. Full disclosure. It’s pretty amazing. But, I’m not ready to go buy a MacBook Pro, as beautiful as the new ones look. All of my software is Windows-based. I just have this feeling that I’ll still be using Windows XP until it’s official “end of life” in 2014. ;)
XP Service Pack 4, anyone?
Wow,
Thanks for the comment. It has to be the longest blog comment I’ve ever read.
I agree completely, Matt. I have no high hopes for Windows 7 however and plan on waiting to upgrade until the faulty code base of Vista is scrapped.
I have vista and downloaded the trial version of windows 7. Windows 7 is much better than vista, i guess many of you know that. Now, i’m back to Vista (it sucks) because 7 will expire in 12 days!! i loved 7 but won’t buy it for that price!! i will hold my nose and continue using vista, i might also go back to xp but i just don’t like xp user interface and prefer the vista interface, oh well!!