Businesses keener on Windows 7 than Vista

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 2 Oct 2008 at 11:57

Windows Vista is still struggling to dislodge XP as the business user's operating system of choice, with many waiting on Windows 7, according to a new report.

The Corporate IT Forum surveyed 44 businesses using Microsoft operating systems and found 58% of them were still "exploiting" Windows XP, with only 4% having taken the Vista plunge.

More worryingly for the Redmond giant, over a third of respondents described themselves as "not yet interested" in Vista. Indeed, of those businesses still running XP, just 14% were considering switching to Vista, as opposed to the 30% taking a look at Windows 7, despite the limited information currently available.

It appears Microsoft has yet to convince businesses of the benefits of its latest operating system, with a typical comment from one of the respondents reading: "Currently there are no business requirements to upgrade to Vista. We will evaluate Windows 7 once it's been released to determine the business benefits."

The survey will come as a blow for Microsoft, which has recently launched a $300 million advertising blitz designed to eulogise the benefits of Vista.

The survey also reveals that Internet Explorer 7 is suffering a similar lack of acceptance, with only 4% of those surveyed using the browser, as opposed to the 65% still using IE6.

As with Vista, it appears many are waiting to see what the future brings, with 23% investigating IE8. Just 16% say they are looking at its predecessor.