The 'Forrester Experiment'
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News Analysis. I suppose debunking reputable analyst firms is one way to attack negative Vista perceptions. But no way would have been better. |
First, it was the "Mojave Experiment," which seeks to show Vista haters can love the operating system if they think it's a new, unreleased Windows version. Now comes the "Forrester Experiment," where the Windows Vista Team blog faults Forrester Research analyst Thomas Mendel's nasty report on Vista.
"Forrester Gets Schizophrenic on Windows Vista" wrote Microsoft's Chris Flores on Friday, referring to Forrester report "Enterprise Trends: Vista Is Rejected; Mozilla and Apple Make Small Gains."
About that "rejected" Chris wrote: "Not surprisingly, this is something that we, our millions of enterprise customers, and a bunch of pesky statistics don't agree with. Heck, even Forrester doesn't agree with Forrester!"
He goes on: "Mr. Mendel's report directly contradicts another Forrester report titled, 'Building the Business Case for Windows Vista,' which was written by fellow analyst Ben Gray. This report outlines the five main reasons why enterprises should start their company's migration to Windows Vista now."
Sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it, and there's this little added zing:
"Given that there's a mountain of evidence to refute this report—including multiple reports from Forrester and other top-tier analysts—this appears to be more focused on making sensationalist statements, rather than offering a thoughtful industry perspective, based on conversations with IT operations professionals or deep knowledge of enterprise deployment cycles. How is this useful guidance to customers? It's disappointing to see such a respected organization like Forrester take this approach."
The only thing misguided here is how Chris' blog mischaracterizes the facts he states. Let's start with the state of Forrester's contradiction. If there's contradiction here, it's Ben with Thomas, not the other way around. Thomas released equally damning Vista data in a report published in March. I blogged twice, here and here, the report's contents. "Vista is having a tough time in enterprises," Thomas observed.
That said, Ben's report—actually there were two, but Chris overlooked one—doesn't contradict his colleague's conclusions. Ben's reports: "Building The Business Case For Windows Vista: Five Reasons To Start Your Company's Migration Soon" and "Lessons Learned From Early Adopters Of Windows Vista: How Businesses Can Overcome The Most Common Migration Challenges."
Ben's reports were guides for enterprises considering Windows Vista deployments. But he acknowledged that Vista had received cool, enterprise perception:
"Desktop operations professionals tell Forrester that they see the value in standardizing on Windows Vista, but many are having a hard time convincing their CIOs that the move isn't a risky bet, given the mixed reaction it's received in the press and the speculation surrounding what to expect after Windows Vista."
More: "Forrester has spoken with dozens of companies that are internally debating the possibility of skipping Windows Vista entirely and going straight to the next release, known as 'Windows 7.'"
I don't see how that's inconsistent with Thomas' dim view of Windows enterprise adoption, a mere 8.8 percent in June, up from 6.2 percent in January. By comparison, Windows XP had 87.1 percent adoption.
Thomas described Vista as the "new Coke," which perhaps is reason for Chris' blog attacking the Forrester report. What happened to the old Coke? It became the new Coke. That's Microsoft's situation, as businesses strip off many of those 180 million Vista licenses that Microsoft claims and reimages with Windows XP.
Worse still for Microsoft, Thomas advised: "Consider following the lead of Microsoft's most important partner Intel and re-evaluating the case for Vista."
Chris accused Forrester of making "sensationalist statements," and insinuated the report wasn't "based on conversations with IT operations professionals." Really? Thomas surveyed 50,000 enterprise customers from more than 2,000 organizations on a monthly basis from January to June. That's an enormous body of respondents, regularly polled. Forrester's research here is thorough and deep, which perhaps is greater reason for someone from Microsoft to attack the findings' legitimacy.
The sensationalist statement here is Chris' claim that there is a "mountain of evidence to refute this report." He sure doesn't cite any reports, So I will:
- April Gartner presentation "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve."
- In June, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Charlie DiBona's scathing 19-page report, where he lowered Vista shipments based on a Peerstone Research survey.
- Last week, KACE's survey findings, conducted by King Research, showing that the number of enterprises with no Vista deployment plans had increased since 2007 (60 percent compared to 53 percent).
These reports do not contradict Forrester's findings. There is here a "mountain of evidence" that corroborates Thomas' report. I can't wait to see what other misinformation Microsoft will unleash with the new Windows Vista marketing campaign. How about you?
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].
Comments (17)
That's Micro$oft engaging in disinformation again. We've seen it all before. What else is new? Thanks for pointing it out, Joe!
Posted by Maddog | July 28, 2008 2:00 AM
How to use Vista. All you have to do is JUST rewrite all your vendor non-supported legacy VB5 apps that work perfectly fine in XP for Vista.
wow that seems like a good idea.
Posted by Vista in the Enterprise | July 28, 2008 11:31 AM
It strikes me as curious that no one has compared Vista's adoption etc. to that of XP around the same time. I've read a lot of stories about Intel not moving its computers to Vista. A handful of them mentioned that Intel actually delayed moving to XP when it first came out.
I remember that XP's adoption was slow too. My university began switching from Win2k to XP only around 2004. Even until early 2006, most of our machines had Windows 2000 on them.
I'm not saying all's fine with Vista. Far from that. But these stories/analysis serve no purpose. 2-3 years from now we'll see similar studies about how enterprises refuse to upgrade to Windows 7.
Posted by Reflections | July 28, 2008 1:23 PM
@Joe Willcox,
So no rules Joe Willcox on commenting? Anything goes, is that right? Or is it just for the Softies that can get away with this type of behavior, and everyone else has to tow the line? Whats it going be? Also is it ok to post comments as Joe Willcox too? At some point there must be rules of conduct.
JM says :
"With Windows 7 around the corner, why should businesses even bother to upgrade to Vista?"
--------------------------------------------------
JM is entirely correct, there is no reason whatever to upgrade unless a computer dies beyond repair, and even in that case, perhaps a new motherboard and just reinstall XP, or free Linux. Not only that, but its smarter to to wait for Windows Seven to come out, rather than upgrade now to Vista. Just skip it, Seven will be out soon anyway. The smartest thing is not to wait for Seven, which will just be Vista2, but to start deploying various disto's of Linux on your business machines now, and make the transition to free and stable; Linux. Get the Monkey Boy off your back with all his constant expensive windows upgrade cycles. Get them at distrowatch.com
Posted by chips | July 28, 2008 1:26 PM
Toe the line.
Posted by Les Verbose | July 28, 2008 1:46 PM
@Joe,
"I don't see how that's inconsistent with Thomas' dim view of Windows enterprise adoption, a mere 8.8 percent in June, up from 6.2 percent in January. By comparison, Windows XP had 87.1 percent adoption."
Once again. Are there any statistics comparing Vista's adoption with XP's adoption during the same phase in its lifecycle? Without that, these statistics are useless, to be frank. Vista may or may not be a huge flop that it's made out to be, but that's not something one can conclude solely on the basis of these numbers. If XP's adoption during the same period in it's life cycle was, say, 30% then, yes, Vista is a big flop. On the other hand, if it was even 9% or 10%, can one truly make such a claim?
Posted by Reflections | July 28, 2008 2:33 PM
It'll also be interesting to see how many enterprises have upgraded from IE6 to IE7. Considering how bad IE6 is and that this is a free upgrade that's available even to XP users, this should be an interesting statistic.
Another statistic that I'd be interested in is OFfice 2007's adoption in the enterprise. Office 2007, unlike Vista is considered to be a success.
Even though number's don't lie, statistics can be made to lie and also to influence people. Again, I'm not pointing fingers at Forrester or Gartner, which are quite well respected.
Posted by Reflections | July 28, 2008 2:58 PM
Joe wrote:
"Now comes the "Forrester Experiment," where the Windows Vista Team blog faults Forrester Research analyst Thomas Mendel's nasty report on Vista."
---------------------------------------------------
Typical MSFT response...blame Vista's problems and perceived perception on everything except the software itself.
Posted by Ralph | July 28, 2008 4:09 PM
Joe, and the whole time I thought you'd be the first with the story.
Oh well. I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. LOL!~
Vertical Computer Systems Inc (BB: VCSY)
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By: RapidRobert2
28 Jul 2008, 04:18 PM EDT
Msg. 216754 of 216763
FINALLY! The FIRST ARTICLE ON THE SETTLEMENT...Wait until the other bloggers pick it up.
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/144577.asp?from=blog_last3
Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog
Microsoft settles patent lawsuit over .Net
Microsoft has reached a settlement in a patent-infringement lawsuit filed last year by Vertical Computer Systems, according to a filing by the mediator in the case: PDF, 1 page. The Fort Worth, Texas, company's complaint alleged that Microsoft's .Net development system violated a patent issued to Vertical in November 2004.
The court docket doesn't reveal financial details or other information about the settlement. I've contacted a Microsoft representative and Vertical Computer's lawyer, and I'll update this post depending on the response.
Here's a copy of the original complaint: PDF, 4 pages. This InfoWorld article from last year has more background on the case.
(Thanks to the tipster who alerted me to this.)
Posted by Todd Bishop at July 28, 2008 12:13 p.m.
Category: Legal Issues
It's about time the 'others' do some research and report on the SETTLEMENT!
NICE!
RR
IMO
Posted by I-Man | July 28, 2008 4:48 PM
@Chips
QUIT WHINING ALREADY, MY GOD YOU're GOING TO TURN AWAY ANYONE THINKING ABOUT GOING TO LINUX ALREADY!
Joe;
Outstanding article!
Love the way you presented the information!
Posted by DamianThorne (The Real one) | July 28, 2008 5:15 PM
@Vista in the Enterprise:
You forgot the huge investment in processor and memory upgrades to support Vista. And with the economy sliding into the ditch, there's even less chance that cash-strapped businesses and schools can afford the hardware upgrades that Vista needs.
@Reflections, Re: XP adoption
When XP came around, its multitasking was light-years ahead of its predecessors (ME, Win 3.11, Win98, and whatever else there was). Before XP, Windows claim to fame was its wealth of compatible and cool GUI applications. But its multi-tasking was an unreliable tinkertoy at best. And that made it worth the extra money for CPU and memory upgrades to buy and run XP.
But Vista's technical foundation is only incrementally better than XP's for what most people need. And XP is already a rock-solid and proven foundation.
Posted by Philosopher | July 28, 2008 6:23 PM
@Philosopher: Good point!
Posted by Reflections | July 28, 2008 8:27 PM
Isn't Forrester just naturally irrelevant since like 'forever'?
Posted by Andre Da Costa | July 28, 2008 8:48 PM
XP still killing Vista in sales volume: HP
http://apcmag.com/xp_still_killing_vista_in_sales_volume_hp.htm
uote:
HP's revelation, made at the launch of a new range of business notebooks, flies in the face of Microsoft's persistent PR claims that Vista has sold tens of millions of copies — and is selling at a faster rate than XP ever did.
However, HP explained how Microsoft is coming up with these "Vista" sales figures.
"From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP licence," said Jane Bradburn, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks for HP Australia.
"However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today."
So, in other words, Microsoft counts a sale for Vista, even though the computer manufacturer has really sold XP.
HP's revelation casts doubt over Microsoft's claims about how many copies of Vista have been sold, as HP has made clear that although a sale may be counted as 'Vista', it may actually be XP.
Microsoft has told HP it will no longer be able to do this after January 2009, but HP's Jerel Chong, Market Development Manager, Commercial Notebooks, said the number one PC maker was already in discussions with Microsoft about how it could push this deadline back.
Posted by Marco | July 29, 2008 10:38 AM
What MS doesn't get, especially for large enterprises, is that it is all about the apps. In reality, I could careless what the OS is. I do care that 1800 supported apps I have, and countless web-based apps, continue to run correctly, and Vista has clearly shown it cannot provide that continuity without major testing and remediation resources. In the business world, OS's job is to present apps and data to the user, not to Wow them.
Posted by byt0saur | July 31, 2008 11:48 AM
Windows Vista is a dog, and it should be taken to the pound and euthanized.
Posted by Josh Levin | July 31, 2008 6:28 PM
Get a MAC!
Posted by Dave | August 27, 2008 8:59 AM