Tue 18 Dec 2007
The German print magazine C’t (26/2007, p.44) has some interesting information regarding Vista adoption in corporate environments. They cited market researchers from Forrester Research and King Research.
These are the most interesting numbers:
- Windows XP market share 2006: 67%
- Windows XP market share 2007: 84%
- Windows Vista market share 2007: below 5% (ranges under others together with NT)
- Predicted market share of Vista by the end of 2007: 7%
- Companies planning to upgrade to Vista in 2008: about 33%
- Companies having no concrete plans to upgrade to Vista: 38%
- Companies that didn’t decide yet to upgrade to Vista: 14%
- IT Pros having doubts regarding Vista: 90%
- IT Pros considering migrating to another OS: 44%
- IT Pros considering migrating to Mac OS: 28%
The last three numbers are quite impressive. However, I think that there is a difference between considering moving to another OS and actually doing it. I suppose, by telling market researchers about their future plans to move away from Windows, IT managers and admins were just expressing their displeasure or dissatisfaction towards Microsoft. And yes, I myself considered changing to Linux a couple of times already. But when I start thinking about all the consequences such a move would mean, I give up such ideas pretty fast.
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When they say “IT Pro’s considering moving to another OS” do they mean moving themselves or moving their organisation? I moved to OS X about a year ago and love it, but only after making very sure that Boot Camp, and more recently VMware Fusion were up to the job for when I just have to run windows, but I wouldn’t dream of asking my organisation to consider another desktop operating system at this stage.
They meant moving their organization to another OS. OS X is certainly as good as Windows if you only consider the OS itself. However, what makes so Windows so powerful is the whole ecosystem around it. IT pros sometimes forget this in their enthusiasm for Macs. I am not only talking about the applications that are not available for OS X. I am talking about System Center and the countless third party management tools for Windows. You can’t replace those tools with virtualization technology or dual boot solutions.
So is this for worldwide, just Germany, or what?
I moved to Mac OSX w/Leopard 3 weeks ago, vowing to never have a Windows PC again–at least not as the host OS. I too put VMWare’s Fusion on my Mac so I could run a Windows VM I created a year ago on VMWare Workstation, and I can also run Ubuntu in a VM, so I get Linux with my Mac and I’m happy. Overall, Mac is pretty nice, but has been noted on the internet by Eweek and others, that the Mac OS sucks with networking. But the nice thing about VMware, my Linux VM connected to Windows networks easily, and I was able to over come a lot of the networking shortcomings of MacOSX by using my Linux VM. Once Apple gets networking right, with better integration with Windows ( Samba ) they will have a really nice OS. The other annoyance is the completely backwards Windows. You have to control Mac Windows on the left-top, not the right-top like Windows or Linux, and you can only resize Mac Windows on the lower-right-corner ONLY. Very annoying, and the last annoyance has been the pathetic File Manager-ugh! Somebody please port a decent File Manager to MAC–NONE EXIST! Believe me, MAC users must have no clue how to organizing their disks because they don’t have a tree context like Windows or Linux. Ugh! There are a couple of 3rd-party apps (Rage, Pathfinder) but still haven’t found a tree-based File Manager like Konqueror or Windows’ File Manager–this is MacOSX’s biggest gaff. Other than that I’ve at least got Windows in a VM, jailed, and quarantined where it can’t waste hardware, or attract viruses and other malware–or at least confine it to its VM quarantine.
7% yeah right! 90% want to stick with XP. Nobody in their right mind wants to try to manage a bunch of macs in the enterprise.
Other reports have shown similar findings… Vista really isn’t cutting it in the enterprise. There do not appear to be enough compelling reasons to move, in fact there are more perceived concerns than benefits.
http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2007/12/10/vista-beaten-by-both-apples-mac-os-x-and-linux/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,5-c,techindustrytrends/article.html
http://www.cio.com/special/slideshows/letdowns/slide10#slideshow
Of course changing the OS is not a step in the wrong direction if you have the choice between M$ and anything else. (especially if it is Vista as one option, another system as another option) But you have to have THAT choice.
There are market segments where there simply is no equivalent software running under any OS (flavor) but the one from M$. And there are no new Windows licenses available for purchase that are not Vista.
I am not flying the flag for Microsoft, and as many of my customers have to decide within the next 12 months what to do, and will not be able to find the same applications that they need to run their business running under anything but Windows, what can they do?
For some people there is no choice but to bear the cross that is Microsoft.
@Mark,
“I am not flying the flag for Microsoft, and as many of my customers have to decide within the next 12 months what to do, and will not be able to find the same applications that they need to run their business running under anything but Windows, what can they do?
For some people there is no choice but to bear the cross that is Microsoft.”
Good point! That is what Microsoft has been exceptionally good at for many years. It is known as Vendor Lock-in. I sympathise with the situation many businesses find themselves in. For many, the alternatives are good and comparable but for others, they don’t really have a choice. Although with the growth of Open Source and MAC the balance is definitely shifting toward better and more alternatives.
Jim, Forrester (the first 7 questions) asked 600 companies in Europe and in the US. King Research (the last 3 questions) asked 900 IT pros, but they didn’t mention in which countries. So I think it was also in the US and Europe. I guess if they asked only German IT pros the outcome would have been even worse for Microsoft.
Tim, every OS has its advantages and disadvantages. However, I think most of the cool Mac features are available as freeware for Windows. The only real advantage of OS X is that you don’t have to worry so much about malware.
Shinyballs, you’re absolutely right. A Mac might be an alternative for home users, but in a corporate environment it is certainly not an option. I would rather go for Linux if I wanted to get rid of Windows.
Alan, I don’t think that companies hesitate to move to Vista because there are no compelling reasons to do so. Many just don’t want to buy new hardware or have software that doesn’t run properly under Vista. Most of Vista’s interesting new features are only relevant in the enterprise. I also think that many simply don’t know about them yet. They know that they can’t move to Vista now, so they didn’t invest time to learn more about Vista.
Mark, I fully agree. I always find it a bit strange when I have to justify why we still count on Windows. It is like asking someone in Beijing why he is still breathing the dirty air in his city. Yeah, he could move to another Chinese city. Unfortunately, the air wouldn’t m be much better there.