Survey: Vista Perceptions Going Down Over Time
Collective wisdom in the industry is that the advertising agency Microsoft
hired to turn around negative perceptions on Vista, Crispin Porter + Bogusky,
took on a tough job. Just how tough became clearer in a
survey
released today.
King Research surveyed more than 1,100 IT managers in June about their Vista
adoption plans. It was the second survey King Research has done on the topic
for KACE, a systems management appliance company based in Mountain View, Calif.
The most alarming aspect of the research for Microsoft channel partners is
that IT concerns about Vista appeared to have grown since the previous run of
the survey in November 2007.
This time, 60 percent of survey respondents said they had no plans to deploy
Vista, an increase of 7 percentage points over the 2007 result. The release
of SP1, historically a key milestone for enterprise adoption of Microsoft products,
didn't appear to change the mood on Vista. According to the survey, 92 percent
of respondents indicated that Vista SP1 hadn't changed their plans for Vista
deployment.
When it came to specific concerns, compatibility of business software appears
to be the deal breaker. Some 83 percent indicated they were concerned about
software compatibility with Vista.
Meanwhile, 42 percent said they would consider deploying Mac OS, Linux or other
operating systems instead of migrating to Vista. While it's good business for
a systems management company like KACE to play up the possibility of heterogeneous
client environments, the results aren't isolated. A recent survey of eWeek readers
brought similar results.
It's going to take a pretty good campaign from Crispin Porter + Bogusky to
turn this ship around.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 23, 2008