Vista Seen as a Yawner

A whopping 83 percent of 100 CIOs surveyed by Citigroup Investment Research during the first quarter responded that Vista will have no impact on this year's hardware spending plans. That percentage rises to 94 percent among the 100 European CIOs surveyed.

The American CIOs, all from Fortune 1000 companies, told Citigroup survey takers that hardware upgrades will continue at their normal rates. Only 10 percent of U.S. CIOs suggested that Vista would have a positive impact on their hardware spending versus 7 percent who indicated Vista would have a negative influence.

The vast majority of CIOs see Vista affecting their spending no earlier than next year. "We believe many enterprises will wait for Microsoft's Longhorn server offering before transitioning to Vista," the 26-page report says.

The Citigroup findings shouldn't be surprising as business-technology leaders' faith in Microsoft operating systems seems to be flagging. A just released survey by CIO Insight shows senior business technologists almost evenly split about whether they feel Vista provides more security than earlier versions of Windows. That same survey showed that nearly half of the 183 respondents' companies moved some of their systems off Windows to reduce overall security risks.

"These executives are much more likely to start moving systems away from Windows than those who believe Vista is a step up when it comes to security," writes my colleague Allan Alter in our report. "Vista's strong sales in the short term are obscuring a significant long-term problem."

Posted by Eric Chabrow on May 31, 2007 10:22 AM