The Vista bashing campaign continues, so I can’t help myself and blog about it again. Computerworld presents new data from Forrester with an article entitled “Forrester survey: Enterprises reject Vista like ‘new Coke‘”. I will write about the same data in this post, but as you might have noticed, I used a slightly different heading. After you have read my version of the story, you will have to acknowledge that sometimes reality is a matter of perspective.

The hard facts of the Forrester survey are that 8.8% of 50,000 enterprise users are running Windows Vista on their PCs and 87.1% Windows XP. Now, I am asking where is the connection to sugar water? Did those 87.1% decide to stay with XP because Vista didn’t taste sweet enough? Or do these enterprise users just use the Windows version that their IT departments installed on their PCs?

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Computerworld ran an interesting survey about Windows Server 2008. According to these numbers, it seems that Server 2008 adoption might be faster than Vista’s. However, in my view, one has to consider a couple of differences between both operating systems. All in all, I don’t believe that Server 2008 will be more successful than Vista.

For example, 63% responded that they plan to adopt Server 2008 “at some point”. This number might seem high, considering that many IT departments indeed plan to skip Vista according to my survey. However, there is a fundamental difference between deploying a desktop OS and a server OS. For many organizations, moving to Vista would mean having to replace all Windows XP machines with Vista within a certain time frame. Managing and supporting two different desktop operating systems for a longer time is usually not a good idea. It stresses help desk personnel and admins as well.

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During research for my series on Vista vs. Windows XP, I stumbled across an article at ChanelWeb that claimed that according to Gartner, the adoption of Vista by businesses is in line with that of XP at a comparable juncture after its release. As I will also publish an article at Computerwoche on this topic, I wanted to be sure if this surprising data really is correct. So I contacted Gartner and they were kind enough to mail me their latest numbers. This data does not exactly match with that of the ChannelWeb article, but it allows us to draw the same conclusion: the adoption rate of Windows Vista is indeed comparable to that of Windows XP after its release.

Here are the numbers I received from Gartner:
PC Installed Base by Operating System, Worldwide

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In his last post, Kennedy discusses an interesting point that no other Vista bashing article has addressed so far. He voices a fear that is probably shared by most IT Pros who have decided against Vista. They might not be aware of it, but it is nagging unconsciously under the surface: Will I be left behind if I skip Vista? Is there something essential I missed about Vista?

Kennedy tries to ease the mind of the worried IT pro:

If ever there were an opportunity to skip a Windows upgrade cycle, the XP-to-Vista transition is it. XP may be showing its age, but its age is mainly skin deep: The new challenger is flashy, but also slower and heavier, and it lacks a killer combination of compelling features needed to unseat XP.

At the end of the decade, when Microsoft’s executives look back at the debacle that was Windows Vista, they’ll see that simply slapping a fresh coat of paint on an otherwise aging Windows architecture wasn’t enough to fool anybody.

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Kennedy dedicated three rounds for this topic, one for Microsoft software compatibility, one for third-party software compatibility, and one for developer tool support. I’ll cover all three topics in one post. Let’s see first what Kennedy said about Microsoft software compatibility:

And as I just noted, the current version of Office – Microsoft Office System 2007 – runs great on Windows XP.

What about future versions? There’s no doubt that, eventually, Microsoft may try to target Vista exclusively. However, finding features and functions that Vista supports and XP doesn’t is not as easy as it sounds. Remember, much of Vista’s “newness” is only skin deep.

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It is time for the next round of the Vista vs. XP match. In my view, Vista won the first two rounds (Security and Manageability) by knocking out XP within the first few seconds. If this were a boxing match, XP would have been counted out already. But because we are fair sportsmen, let’s give the old champion another chance to regain its title. As before, the text in italics summarizes Kennedy’s arguments.

With Vista, Microsoft introduced some enhancements under the hood that improve reliability. Examples include improved heap management, power management and support for low priority I/O tasks. During day-to-day operations, however, these new features don’t have much impact (expect low I/O priority). When it comes to stability, Windows XP SP2 has proven to be rock solid, and SP3 might even improve the situation. Vista has little room to score in this area.

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NETWORKWORLD has an interesting article about a new study from Forrester. In a document for “only” $279, Forrester analyst Benjamin Gray recommends not to skip Vista. I didn’t read the study myself because I usually don’t buy papers with unknown length for $279 even if it is from a well-known research company. So I can only rely on what NETWORKWORLD wrote about it.

Here are the five arguments that speak for upgrading to Vista in your organization according to Forrester:

1. Switching thousands of users from Windows to another platform (Mac OS, Linux) is not a workable solution for the majority of companies.
2. Users need to stay current on Microsoft and independent-software-vendor (ISV) support of Windows operating systems.
3. Probable unavailability of Windows XP after June 30, 2008
4. Uncertainty around the availability and feature set of Windows 7
5. Valuable Vista features: security and user enhancements

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Todd Bishop hosts the birthday party. He invited a couple of interesting people, not all of them came to wish a happy birthday. This post just contains my favorite snatches of conversation I picked up at the party.

The consumer version of Windows Vista was released exactly one year ago, that is on January 30, 2007. Volume license customers were able to get it two months earlier. At that time, I wondered why Microsoft missed the Christmas sales. Considering how long it took until the first Vista computers showed up in the shops, this move was not too bad with hindsight. It seems as if Microsoft already knew that it would be a long way to go for Vista. Nobody believed that adoption would still be a topic on Vista’s first birthday.

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The adoption of Windows Vista in corporate environments is probably not as fast as Microsoft had hoped for. The question is, can Windows Server 2008 accelerate Vista adoption after it’s released? This certainly depends on the features that can only be used if you deploy Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista together. In this post, I examine all these features I am aware of.

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This has been a very popular topic for some months now. There were many studies and reports claiming that Vista adoption is much slower than Microsoft had hoped for. I am curious to know how the situation in your respective organization is.

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