Most Companies Won't Deploy Windows 7 — Survey

angry tapir writes "Nearly six in 10 companies have no current plans to deploy Windows 7 by the end of next year, according to a new survey. Of 1,100 IT administrators who responded to the survey, 59.3 percent said they didn't have a plan to deploy Windows 7. (Full results, PDF.)"

So in 3 months

[Norsefire]

It's gone from 83% that won't [slashdot.org] to 59.3%.

Based on that, if MS wait nine months there will be people buying two copies.

Microsoft Support Lifecycle FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, Windows XP will be on Extended Suport until 08/04/2014.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-gb&C2=1173 [microsoft.com]

Here is a list of what is covered (Security Hotfix Patches & Microsoft Knowledge Base.)

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy [microsoft.com]

There's also a horrible rumor going around where people are assuming Windows XP will become "disabled" in 2010 unless you upgrade.

Re:So more than 4 out of 10 companies are switchin

[John Hasler]

I think that the point is that it is historically low.

Re:SP2 Syndrome

[Octorian]

Except "Windows 7" is really just Vista SP3 :-)
(okay, Vista is NT 6.0, Win7 is NT 6.1)

Re:SP2 Syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Vista SP2 and I'm pretty sure it's not Windows 7. It may be SP3 tho.

Re:Talk about a misleading title

[code65536]

The other big problem is that whoever wrote the article obvious did not bother reading the source, because he's missing the historical context (XP's was 12-14%, the source states). Seeing as how the "article" is just something on some blog (and was submitted to /. by the owner of that blog... hmm), I guess sensationalizing is better than actually reporting what the source says.

Re:Still using IE6

[jitterman]

For most companies, there probably won't be formal training, but there will be a lot of time spent by help desks/desktop techs walking individuals through tasks, usually more than once per person. At least that's my experience after 15 years in the industry. A major upgrade (and from the viewpoint of an "I don't know computers I just use them to do my job" employee, this would be major) is much more expensive than the initial purchase price.

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[ens0niq]

"Right, it just means 6/10 don't plan to deploy it by the end of next year."
False. Read the fine PDF:

Which below represents the most accurate statement about your plans to deploy Windows 7?

We have no current plans to deploy Windows 7 59.3%
We will likely deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010 34.0%
We plan on deploying Windows 7 by the end of 2009 5.4%
We have already deployed Windows 7 1.4%

According this 59,3% will skip Windows 7 completely. 34,0% will likely deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010. Likely.

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[slaker]

Microsoft's Open Licenses generally allow for downgrades to previous versions as part of Software Assurance, and for that matter, retail copies of current "Business" products can likewise be downgraded, and even more than that, any white box vendor can still obtain OEM XP Licenses for new systems. That means not buying Dell or HP desktops (though at the moment Dell and Lenovo at least are still offering XP on some configurations), or for a small organization, tempering the desire to buy a new box from Best Buy, but it is by no means impossible to obtain XP.

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[Gay for Linux]

We have no _CURRENT_ plans to deploy Windows 7. You're completely missing the point here. They may not be planning it RIGHT NOW but they're going to see how things turn out. That's not "skip completely."

The Missing Summary from TFA

[Keith Russell]

By linking directly to the PDF, the submitter bypassed a summary from ScriptLogic's web page that directly contradicts the summary provided by angry tapir and kdawson:

The primary goal of this survey was to assess the impact of the weak economy on IT infrastructure projects and we found that, despite its impact on short-term plans, 41% of organizations plan a wholesale migration to Windows 7 by the end of 2010. This is actually a strong adoption rate when compared to the historical adoption rate of Windows XP in its first year which was cited as 12-14%.

Furthermore, in ScriptLogic's primary market segment it is usual for businesses to upgrade operating systems piecemeal as they purchase new desktop hardware, so the fact that nearly half of organizations surveyed are planning major rollouts during 2009-2010 indicates a high acceptance of Windows 7 among small and medium businesses.

Hat tip: Ed Bott [zdnet.com]

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[jac89]

Okay first of all windows 7 works on PCs that are relatively underpowered (netbooks), and if you have a computer less than 3 years old it should be able to run vista.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[initdeep]

It regularly corrupts network files simply by opening them.

Bullshit.

Re:SP2 Syndrome

[value_added]

And XP is 5.1. It's just a number to deal with crappy program version number compatibility.

LOL. You don't get it, do you?

Windows 9x (DOS) ... Windows ME (DOS)
Windows NT (NT3.1) ... Windows NT (NT3.5)
Windows NT (NT4.0)
Windows 2000 (NT5.0) ... XP (NT5.1)
Windows Vista (NT6.0) ... Windows 7 (NT6.1)

If you can't recognise the incremental changes in the DOS line, or the similarly incremental changes in the different NT lines, than I'd suggest looking a bit more closely. By incremental, I'm referring to both version numbers and the OS itself.

Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either

[jimicus]

Depends very much on the company.

Most places I've worked (large and small), 3-5 years "refresh" doesn't mean "everyone automatically gets a new machine after 3-5 years whether they need it or not". It means "If someone's PC packs up after 3-5 years for whatever reason, we won't dedicate any time to fixing it".

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[TheLinuxSRC]

This is very similar to the situation I am in. I currently head IT for a dot-com. Our plan is to replace desktop machines with Linux or OSX depending on job function (writers/sales get Linux, graphics guys get Macs). We have absolutely no intention of "upgrading" _anything_ to Vista/7.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[MightyMartian]

We bumped most of our computers up to Vista this spring, and while, for the most part, it hasn't been too bad, there are still many little idiosyncrasies. Vista has stabilized, that's for sure, but I'd hardly call it as quality an OS as XP (despite the fact that it does have some nifty features). As to Windows 7, well there's just no way in hell we're going to be doing any upgrades to it in the foreseeable future. The next round of upgrades aren't reasonably scheduled for another three or four years, so I suppose then we might bump up, unless we decide to go open source (which we may, I'm certainly moving away from Microsoft on the server front to save the company a significant amount of money in license fees). I've got a few years to figure it all out,

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[torkus]

I call BS on your BS. There ARE benefits to W7 however they fail to balance the large cost of upgrading in a corporate environment (which, mind you, is what this article is about).

Vista still has major bugs. They have NOT all been fixed - many have just been hacked around so they're less painful. I mean, seriously, who releases a new OS that is hideously slow just doing a basic file copy. Any PR flack MS got over vista they deserve 10x over. Only their complete refusal to admit to reality and millions of dollars spend on advertising kept it from being the biggest joke of the decade.

Our refusal to upgrade is NOT

a) based any way on 'shinyness'. In fact, the fewer things my staff have to tinker with, the better.

b) because of some unfounded fear of new ways of doing things. Instead consider having to re-train 1000's of employees (or 100x that even bigger companies) because MS decided to move icons, menus, labels, etc. around. It's not rocket science, but then again plenty of computer-using employees are far from computer guru's. Training cost and time lost figuring things out, getting lost in menus, and so on gets very expensive. Why change when the "old way" actually works quite well?

c) If a global company with global brand recognition, a WAN spanning a dozen+ countries, thousands of corporate clients is a limited world please do tell me what I'm missing. Granted we aren't hooked up to the ISS. But still. Security upgrades are handy but UAC is still not a substitute for proper rights management. Memory management ... is this DOS 6.x and Win 3.11? Improved network stacks...?! I know some ultra-high-demand, ultra-low-latency situations where this DOES matter but none of those computers are running Windows.

So other than misplaced belief in new security (the biggest security flaw exists between the chair and keyboard at any given desk) and some nifty CONSUMER-ORIENTED things there's direct little benefit to W7 as of yet.

Re:I'll deploy Win7

[JShadow]

It regularly corrupts network files simply by opening them.

Bullshit.

Actually, that's accurate, at least fore Vista before SP1. I had a test Vista computer corrupt network files regularly before SP1. Of course after SP1 then networking worked better (still a pain in the 4$$ with their stupid wizards).