"Clients tell us they'd rather take Windows 2000 to Windows XP in the immediate future and take a wait-and-see approach to Windows Vista," Gray wrote. "Over time, they'll become more bullish on making the jump straight to Windows Vista as they see other enterprises (Windows 2000 shops or otherwise) experience a smooth transition."

Yeah, right. Why move from an OS that works to Vista?

Funny, with all Windows bashing out there, you would think Linux/Mac has a larger marketshare with Corporations. The larger share of XP will move to Vista when SP1 is out.

By installing Linux and OpenOffice, the total cost of the PC is kept as low as possible. While the price of hardware has fallen dramatically, the price of Windows hasn’t. This could be Microsoft’s Achilles’ Heel. This low price point will appeal to many.
blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=926

I'm not going to get into the details of what Vista has to offer, for that you can see the PCMag review of it. Suffice to say that I have run Windows Vista Ultimate and I find it quite underwhelming compared to what Leopard offers. Microsoft just didn't deliver the goods with Vista the way that Apple has with Mac OS X Leopard, and there's just no other way to put it.

Vista is an example of what happens when Microsoft takes its eye off of operating systems so that they can compete with Google. Vista might not have been such a turd if Microsoft had only focused the appropriate amount of time, resources, and attention. Alas, it is what it is and it simply can't compete with Leopard as a desktop operating system.
extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2214929,00.asp

According to our survey, the biggest reason for the slow Vista adoption curve was the negative response from current Vista users. Among the 13% who currently use Vista at home, one-in-three said they were unsatisfied with the product
yahoo.com/seekingalpha/070919/47615_id.html?.v=1

We should ask Stuart Scott why everything is either slow or delayed?(He knows!)
Is it because Microsoft has to be very careful not to infringe on anymore of VCSY's patents in case the judge frowns on that kind of thing. LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4ZhPI1eic4

Well I recall reading similar articles with XP and look where we are now. But I see a difference from the XP debate and the Vista debate. XP moved many home and business from Windows 95 and 98 for many obvious reason. Vista just doesn't offer the same bang for the buck when compared to XP or even Windows 2000. The questions around the IT coffee room really come down to just what exactly can you do with Vista that you can't do with XP (or could not be done)? I have little doubt that Vista will not inevitably take the XP market. Enterprise will cave to end of support threats from MS and migrate out of fear and worry over necessity and practicality. I wouldn't be proud to maintain my market lead this way but I guess I may feel differently if I were a million or billionaire.

Our company is 90% OS X and 10% XP & DOS (some of the the CNCs still use DOS). Forrester Research never calls us to participate in their surveys.

The plan next year is to eliminate dedicated XP and DOS hardware completely. The CNC controllers are being upgraded to a Linux-based OS, and if XP is needed, it will be run only on VMs.

Since your source for this article is Forrester, then this link is appropiorate, titled:

Forrester Calls Desktop Linux a Credible Threat to Windows

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2217087,00.asp

Quote: "The high volume of client inquiries for Linux on the desktop clearly indicates it's not going away any time soon. Expect Linux to experience growth over the next year"
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The link is even an eweek Ziff Davis website.

New Day Dawning for Desktop Linux?

http://www.rootly.com/topics/business/cio/New_Day_Dawning_for_Desktop_Linux/

Quote from the link:

"Has the time for desktop Linux finally arrived? One relevant data point is that Wal-Mart has sold out of the Everex gPC, a Google-friendly, Linux-based PC priced at $199. Wal-Mart says more units are on the way for the holiday season, but right now the retailer's Web site indicates the machines are sold out. The gPC has been one of the top performing desktop computers on Wal-Mart.com over the last few weeks"

The Vista Death Watch

by John C. Dvorak

Quotes: "Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP because Vista has simply not shown any life in the market. We have to begin to ask ourselves if we are really looking at Windows Me/2007, destined to be a disdained flop. By all estimates the number of Vista installations hovers around the number of Macs in use."

"So what went wrong with Vista in the first place? Let’s start off with the elephant in the room. The product was overpriced from the outset. Why was it so expensive? What was special about it? All the cool and promised features of the original vision of Longhorn were gutted simply because it was beyond Microsoft’s capability to implement those features."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2209837,00.asp

October Leopard sales outpace Windows in Japan

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/11/13/october-leopard-sales-outpace-windows-in-japan

Quote from the link:

"Though Apple has only seen a "modest" increase in Mac shipments to Japan lately, sales of Mac OS X Leopard has reportedly leapfrogged past Windows in the country. It now claims 53.9 percent of Japan's OS-only market in October, according to Japan's Business Computer News. Mac OS X sales increased from 15.5 to 60.5 percent year-over-year, while Windows suffered a sudden drop from 75.3 to 28.7 percent over the same period. Vista sales have also been lackluster (sometimes, depending on who you talk to), leading enough customers to demand many of the world's top PC manufacturers to offer XP on some models again."
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Vi$ta is and will make money for MS, this is a given. But the real battle is control of the desktop and enterprize. In this battle Vi$ta will lose market share points to other OS, Linux and Mac.

Vista will take off "again" in 2008 just like it has in 2007. 100 million desktops are running Vista in 2007 and the enterprises are seeing the value because those same CIO's are running the OS at home and understand its a significant upgrade that will deliver new positive experiences for Information Workers across the organization.

Part of the wait on mass adoption through Corporate America and Europe is partly attributed to major Server releases from Microsoft coming down the pipe line. I can betcha most of these CIO's are already running Vista in test labs. With Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 there will be a mass migration to Vista in the coming year.

That 10 percent still on 2000 know they are ripe for the upgrade and are waiting for the perfect opportunity. Company's realize that Vista is secure, easy to use and offers users the end to end experiences they want in Collaboration, management, search and multimedia.

Linux lacks in this department from the hardware to the software. If there are any deployments of Linux it will remain in the Server arena and is vulnerable to the fact that Windows is still a lurking choice for most IT Pro's who are entrenched with knowledge of the Windows platform. So a second migration from Linux on the Server end to Server 2008 is not out of the question here, it has happened so many times before.

Joe, you have continually underestimated Vista and Office 2007. They are successful releases accept it and move.

Chips, Mac OS X user base is 25 million users, compared to Vista at 100 million and the general Windows user base at over a billion. Obviously its a mass migration of old Mac die hards still on PowerPC that have put the small blip that is Leopard on the map, its will die soon, so prepare yourself.

mailbox01 said: Funny, with all Windows bashing out there, you would think Linux/Mac has a larger marketshare with Corporations.

There's a whole lot more anti-Linux FUD backed by Miro$oft's money out there. This garbage reaches more media outlets than Linux user blogs and user comments. Micro$oft also has more shills making false statements and half-truths out there too. All that is still effective. That's why Micro$oft resorts to it. Micro$oft can't make a better product, but they can put out more misinformation than anyone else. It's dirty and morally reprehensible, but what does Micro$oft care about right and wrong?

XP Pro works great for both business and personal use, for now. I simply don't want to spend the money and take the risk of Vista not supporting what I am currently doing with XP. I will wait for Vista SP2 before I even consider upgrading.

I tried Linux, but that was no silver bullet either. Although I am impressed at how far the OS has come along in the last 5 years. It still lacks features for the average non-technical user. But, I do see that gap being closed.

Vista came be summed up in two words for the average end-user: Why upgrade?

@Andre
"seeing the value because those same CIO's are running the OS at home and understand its a significant upgrade that will deliver new positive experiences for Information Workers across the organization."

What value? Where? MS certainly says likes to drop these words but fails to elaborate. What exactly can Vista do that XP doesn't or can't? What Vista does do in the enterprise is create work. It creates working for people to test existing applications, it creates work for the developers that have to correct the problem for the application to work properly on Vista, it creates work for the Helpdesk that must deploy it. It creates work for procurement staff. It creates work for training. While I can't say much about the value it brings it does do a great job of keeping the IT department employed.

We should ask Stuart Scott why everything is either slow or delayed?(He knows!)
Is it because Microsoft has to be very careful not to infringe on anymore of VCSY's patents in case the judge frowns on that kind of thing

Here is the link for the King survey that Joe Wilcox mentions;

http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/infrastructure/applications/news/index.cfm?newsid=6258

Quote from the link:

"Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half said they have no plans to deploy Vista.

"The concerns about Vista specified by participants were overwhelmingly related to stability. Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista," said Diane Hagglund of King Research, which conducted the survey for systems management vendor Kace. "Cost was also cited as a concern by some respondents."

The survey, echoing one from Forrester last week, shows most IT professionals are worried about Vista and that 44% have considered non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and Macintosh, to avoid the Microsoft migration.

"Clearly many companies are serious about this alternative, with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year," the report "Windows Vista Adoption and Alternatives" reads."
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Thats sounds like a whole lot of businesses that are getting it right and getting off the M$ Windows constant upgrade bandwagon for good.

M$ just dosen't get it, computer hardware has been getting cheaper all the time, and software can be had for free now. Its only M$ software that is the same price or more expensive now. On low end new computers, the price of Vi$ta and Office cost more than the hardware. Its no wonder that Vi$ta is a train wreck.

knows what Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell have been up to and if they are going to talk again anytime soon in the Bay Area.

I like very much the writings and pictures and explanations in your adress so I look forward to see your next writings. I congratulate you.