Vista Adoption Accelerates
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B2B IT product seller CDW has just come out with a study that may get IT executives to re-think their decision to hold off on upgrading from XP. The third and final installment in their year-long "Windows Vista Tracking Poll" of 772 "IT decision" makers shows corporate IT are now much further down the path towards deploying the operating system than a year ago: |
November 2007: 48% are using or evaluating Windows Vista;
February 2007: 29% were;
October 2006: 12% were.
What's more, according to CDW's announcement:
Actual adoption has advanced: "Of those respondents evaluating or using it, 35 percent are in some stage of migration to Windows Vista, up from 12 percent in the previous poll. Thirteen percent of implementations are complete, with an additional 33 percent planned for completion by May 2008.
Users like it: "Nearly 50 percent of those evaluating and implementing Windows Vista rate its performance against the promise of key features and benefits as `above expectations,' with highest ratings on improvements in security, performance, productivity, search/organization and updates. This survey also found less concern about hardware requirements for Windows Vista than in the February 2007 survey, with only 27 percent of participants saying that hardware requirements are excessive, down from 37 percent."
Still, this is far from a universal adoption, or even halfway home: by my reckoning, this means that only about a quarter of respondents to the CDW poll will have migrated to Vista by May 2008.
For an even more skeptical view, see the eWeek opinion column "Night of the Living Vista".
Comments (1)
Although Vista promises many improved features it becomes an uphill battle for those who have established networks with corporate licenses for: remote software deployment, Anti-virus/malware, backup/snapshot, and other software that are critical for maintaining the health of the corporate network. Vista has introduced the next generation of opportunity to increase security, usability and most important brings the computer users to a new precipice (making ready users to take the next step in computer evolution) but many of these established network must wait for their corporate software vendors to provide the compatible upgrades that will function properly with Vista.
Some feel that it is a balancing act that a CIO must perform between the hype and snare of bleeding edge technology and timely implementations to keep pace with the evolutionary process, however a well seasoned CIO should understand that the balancing act should focus more heavily on the software side of the equation and not the Operating System (O.S.) side. Our judgment should be based on the consideration that our network architecture stability is our critical mission. Continued architecture stability requires our efforts to focus time to evaluate our corporate software vendor partnerships in the following areas:
1. Their ability to bring the reliable Vista compatible releases to market.
2. Their ability to bring prompt service releases to market.
3. Their financial health which will have a direct correlation on their ability to mobilize staff to develop existing product on Vista (future) O.S. releases
4. The track record of new O.S. releases and their lag time to release.
CIO�s need to appreciate the economics and how not only our internal resources are being strained but that our software partners feel these same economic pains and may be unwilling to devote resources for the early adopter of new technologies. Some cororate software companies refuse to retool products until an adoption of a percentile is reached in the market.
A CIO�s decision may shift from the question of; �When do we adopt Vista?� to; �Which corporate software vendors can meet the corporate needs? (and which will be replaced)�
Posted by Research Team | January 17, 2008 11:19 AM