This is the second survey to show that, the more people learn about Vista, the less they want to use it.

"Among those businesses not evaluating or using Windows Vista, the number planning to upgrade eventually declined (to 54 percent from 60 percent) and the number with no upgrade plans increased (to 19 percent from 15 percent)."

Umm. This is a pretty misleading statistic. I wonder if it was worded this way on purpose.

Let's just forget the fact that the sample size for this study is too small to make any conclusions based on 4% changes.

The most reasonable explanation for the PERCENTAGE declines/increase you mention is that the total number of "businesses not evaluating or using Windows Vista" has decreased from 79% to 71%. The numerator has shrunk! Thus, even if the "no plans to upgrade" number remained the same or even decreased slightly, when taken as a percentage of a smaller pool, of course it's going to increase!

Why wouldn't you just report the numbers "as is" instead of trying to create silly meaningless statistics?

correction: i meant "the demonitator has shrunk!"

Niel? Where are you? We need your explanation of how this is all just another Microsoft bashing story.

Joe Wilcox's articles usually give the following impression:

1. Microsoft is not doing well
2. Vista is horrible and can be compared to Me. though he never explicitly states this, he provides enough hints in his articles.
3. He has made it quite clear that he uses Windows only because he gets paid to do so. He'd rather be using OS X or a flavor of Linux.
4. When talking about Microsoft, he has as much objectivity as someone like Steve Jobs.
5. He focuses on articles that bash Microsoft, while ignoring the ones that show the company in good light.

Well, sk, Microsoft is not doing well. The only real measure of Microsoft's health is their stock price, and for the past 5 years it has been trading in a flat range, averaging $28. It hit a high of $30 in 2003 and 2004, and only recently touched $31 on Jan 19. Hardly a ringing endorsement for this stock. Note that Vista's "phenomenal success" hasn't helped the stock price one whit.

For all intents and purposes, money invested in MSFT is dead money. Going forward, there is no reason to believe the situation will improve.

Vista is not horrible but it *is* getting a big yawn from the public. The above survey clearly demonstrates this. So what can you, sk, say to reflect consumer enthusiasm for this product?

BTW, what articles show MS in a good light??? These days, it's hard to say anything positive about them because MS isn't doing anything worth crowing over. The company is stagnating and struggling to be relevant.

Well Richard, even though I think that MS leaders right now are strangely clueless about MS' future strategy, I do _not_ consider any stock report to be an objective indicator of a companies health.

We all know how overrated a lot of pointless companies were around the year 2000. Stock prices have been and will always be psychological indicators. Only showing about the perceived value of any company.

Right now MS is doing pretty well (IMHO despite Vista - not because of Vista). BTW: Stock holders mostly care only about short time revenue.

But I do have big questions about MS' future. Their flagship products are not worth upgrading, they have not found any reasonable answer to Open Source (of which honestly embracing OS could be one possible answer) and they do not well in any web-based arena.

Yes, stock price *is* psychologically driven...in the short term. Over a five year horizon or longer, however, stock performance is a more stable and reliable indicator of corporate health. Moreover, unlike the years leading up to 2000, we are NOT in any kind of market bubble.

(What shareholders care about is irrelevant--what counts is share price, and MSFT's hasn't been doing well at all in recent years.)

I like Deb Shinder's comment on her blog:

My first complaint is that the company is just too darn big. When any entity grows beyond a certain point, it becomes sluggish and less efficient and doesn't function as well. That applies to obese people (and animals), big government, and private businesses. Microsoft employees are, for the most part, enthusiastic and creative and want to give their customers great products, but just as the wheels of our gigantic government move at a snail's pace, so does the decision-making process within the company. There are just too many levels that any decision has to go through, too many people to raise questions and place obstacles in the way of getting the job done. This, unfortunately, seems to be the consequences of success in today's business world. It's certainly not unique to Microsoft, but a software company, especially, needs to be innovative and it's hard to be innovative when every idea gets smothered under layers and layers of ... lawyers.

How is MS doing pretty well? Because it has amassed $70B in cash? Because it continues to reap a constant stream of OEM PC revenue? Unless the company is growing (and growth is reflected in share price over time), it is stagnating.

Richard,

Take a hypothetical situation where Company X was stagnating. Would a blog site that focused on that company be interesting? Inspite of the successes of Google and Apple, there are so many sites that focus on Microsoft. Even Microsoft-watch does so, although it presents the information in a negative perspective. If the company was irrelevant and stagnating, you wouldn't be reading these articles.

What sites show MS in good light? I don't know, but there are several that are more objective. You'll probably call them shills.

If Company X had a monopoly stranglehold on an industry, then yes, a Company X-specific blog would be interesting (as Microsoft Watch is). Microsoft is still a very influential company, even if its marketshare is shrinking, even if its products are becoming less relevant, even if its ability to "innovate" is dwindling. As long as the elephant in the room continues to cast a shadow, we will continue to cover its stories...

I can't argue with you. How can a company cease to be relevant and continue to be so influential? Yes, in the consumer area, the focus has shifted to web applications and Microsoft hasn't really had much success here, but if you as an IT professional, I think he'll say Office, SharePoint, Windows Server, and SQL Server are a little more relevant than Picasa or Google Reader or even Google Apps. Richard, you have to understand that there's more to Microsoft than the Zune or Windows Live Hotmail.

I didn't say "cease to be relevant." I said "becoming less relevant."

How can MS continue to be influential? In a word: size. Monopoly control. If you have 90% marketshare, you have control and influence.

But MS is having great difficulty moving the IT industry in new directions, try as they might. Their biggest cash cows are Windows and Office, and in these areas they still exert influence. But Windows and Office are so 1990s and we're in a new age now. MS is a dinosaur trying to evolve.

And not succeeding...

On a related note, I found a *great* article by Jerry Pournelle, the Grand Old Man of IT journalism. (I used to read Pournelle all the time, from way back in the days of BYTE magazine.)

Here's the article. Enjoy!

The problem with all things Microsoft is its a house of cards. You pull the bottom card out (windows) and all the other cards fall. Office would not be the product it is without all the dirty tricks used to beat Wordperfect and Lotus. Office will not long maintain dominance in a OS level atmosphere.

Xbox is still not making money. Zune is not ever going to make money, in fact its a DRM joke at best. Windows Live/MSN or whatever M$ wants to call it this week is still losing market share to Google, with no end in site.

Now here comes Vista, its not good, the public does not like it, except for a few fanboys and shills. Linux and Apple both start to gain market share. Wonder why?