Study: Vista adoption stymied, Mac OS X viewed as alternative OS
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jul 23, 2008 at 11:25am
KACE, a systems management appliance company, has announced results from a recent survey that revealed 60 percent of the IT administrators polled have no plans to deploy Windows Vista—almost 10 percent more than originally reported in the November 2007 survey on the same topic. The survey results showed the Mac operating system as the most likely alternative operating system to be deployed.
In response to concerns about unwanted complexity to their IT environments, 42 percent of IT administrator respondents said they would consider deployment of alternative operating systems, such as Mac OS and Linux, in order to avoid a migration to Vista, and 92 percent said the release of Vista Service Pack 1 hasn’t changed their plans for Vista deployment.
The research, consisting of an online survey with over 1,100 IT manager respondents, was conducted by King Research and commissioned by KACE to gather data about the perceived impact of Vista on IT administration and specifically about operating system adoption strategies in business environments. The research shows that IT departments of all sizes have growing concerns about deploying Vista, and are even choosing to deploy alternative operating systems instead. This trend has lead to a new set of challenges, such as the difficulties derived from managing multiple operating systems and a lack of familiarity with non-Windows alternative operating systems.
“The second version of the Vista Adoption Trends survey clearly demonstrates Microsoft is still fighting an uphill battle with Vista and the release of Vista Service Pack 1 did little to change corporate opinion about the operating system,” says Diane Hagglund of King Research and the survey’s author. “These same IT departments are evaluating alternative methods to stave off Vista deployment with many moving to the Mac operating system instead. This brings up a whole new set of challenges related to managing heterogeneous environments and compounds the importance of systems management devices that deliver a single interface for diverse operating systems.”
A summary of the key findings from the survey include:
° 60 percent of the survey respondents indicated they have no plans to deploy Vista at this time, up from 53 percent in the 2007 survey;
° 92 percent indicated Vista Service Pack 1 has not changed their plans for Vista deployment;
° 65 percent said it is challenging to obtain the expertise needed to manage multiple operating systems, up from 49 percent in November 2007;
° 83 percent revealed they are concerned about the compatibility of required business software with Vista;
° 41 percent of the respondents reported it is challenging to secure multiple operating systems, up from 25 percent in November 2007.
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JonCole Says:
As much as I love Mac OS X, I guess I don’t understand why IT Administrators “in response to concerns about unwanted complexity to their IT environments” would put in Linux and/or OS X if they already have a Microsoft-based system.
“83 percent revealed they are concerned about the compatibility of required business software with Vista”. So are they planning on installing it on Linux or OS X? If they have software that runs on XP, I would think they would have a better chance of installing it on Vista rather than OS X (save running BootCamp or VM Ware).
Am I missing something?
Posted on July 24, 2008
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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CR Says:
Just to note the ever proven Benjamin Disraeli line, there are “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” I’m no fan of Vista and would rather use the Mac for sure - but if you consider the stat “60 percent of the survey respondents indicated they have no plans to deploy Vista at this time, up from 53 percent in the 2007 survey;” this is a great example of how statistics can unitentionally deceive. What it doesn’t consider is that some of the original percent will have now upgraded, so there will be a larger number of those who will not left. So even if the basic propensity to upgrade remained the same, the number planning to would have to go down.
Posted on July 23, 2008