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The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey

By | July 13, 2009, 2:49pm PDT

Summary: A new survey of Windows 7 adoption plans released today confirms the results of surveys taken earlier this year: Even in the midst of a horrible global recession, businesses are on track to adopt Windows 7 at extraordinarily high rates. So why is the technical press reporting a completely different story?

Earlier today, ScriptLogic, a software developer that specializes in Windows management software, published the results of a Windows 7 adoption survey they conducted recently. A  summary of the survey data, from 1100 IT pros, is available for download from ScriptLogic here (PDF). The summary includes no analysis. Apparently, ScriptLogic assumed that anyone reading this handout would be able to interpret the survey results correctly.

Ha ha ha.

ScriptLogic did provide a brief introduction and analysis on the download page for the report. Here is the entire two-paragraph introduction, which a literate adult can read in probably 30 seconds. It might take a minute or two if you move your lips while reading. Go ahead, I’ll wait:

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 [emphasis in original] 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%. [emphasis added]

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. [emphasis added]

Seems pretty clear, right? “Wholesale migration” by more than 40% of businesses in just over a year. My first reaction when I read that was “Holy crap, that’s a big number!”

In fact, this new survey confirms the results of two other surveys taken earlier this year by different organizations, which I wrote about on April 16 (see Will Windows 7 be Microsoft’s biggest business hit ever?). That 41% adoption rate, roughly 14 months after Windows 7 goes on sale, plots almost perfectly onto the graph I created for that post and have reprinted here. The blue line is projected Windows 7 adoption rates over the next three years, the orange line is actual Windows XP adoption over an equivalent amount of time:

Given this data, one would think the technical press would be reporting the obvious conclusion to be drawn from this survey: Even in the midst of the worst worldwide recession in recent memory, Windows 7 is shaping up to be one of Microsoft’s biggest success stories ever. Right?

Again: ha ha ha.

Here is a depressingly representative sampling of the actual headlines I read on Google News today:

Huh?

Out of all those reports, only John Paczkowski of All Things Digital grudgingly noted that this is “a high level of adoption for a new OS, especially in the current economic climate.” In the final graf, after saying Windows 7 will be “ignored” because of “hesitation” by “gun-shy” IT pros.

Yes, it’s a high level of adoption, but not high enough, I guess. For today’s jaded technical press and pundits, anything less than 100% adoption, overnight, is a colossal failure. Which is kind of like saying that this year’s Star Trek was a flop because 268 million Americans didn’t go see it.

Meanwhile, in yesterday’s news (literally), PC World summarized a new report by IDC analyst Al Gillen, which predicts that Windows 7 will account for 75% of units shipped in 2011 and will achieve total world domination within three years:

Windows 7 momentum will translate in 2013 to the new OS accounting for 95% of the operating systems Microsoft sells to businesses. That percentage is up from 90% forecast for 2012.

What, not 100%? Losers.

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Topics

Survey, ScriptLogic Corp., Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Marketing Research, Operating Systems, Software, Marketing, Ed Bott

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.

Disclosure

Ed Bott

Ed Bott is a freelance technical journalist and book author. All work that Ed does is on a contractual basis.

Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books written prior to fall 2011 have been distributed by Que Publishing (a division of Pearson Education) and by Microsoft Press. As of November 2011, Ed is a partner in the independent publishing company Fair Trade Digital Exchange, which exclusively publishes his books.

On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and knowledge of Microsoft and Microsoft Windows have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate.

Ed does not own stock or have any other financial interest in Microsoft or any other software company. He owns 500 shares of stock in EMC Corporation, which was purchased before the company's acquisition of VMware. In addition, he owns 350 shares of stock in Intel Corporation, purchased more than two years ago. All stocks are held in retirement accounts for long-term growth.

Ed does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.

Biography

Ed Bott

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He's served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the recently released Windows 7 Inside Out.

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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
FAULKNE 13th Oct
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Great post, Ed!
cfischer83@... 13th Jul 2009
I've seen most of those "stories" or at least those headlines on places like CNET and Computerworld. As we've seen with Vista, it's pretty amazing what the tech/journalism industry can do when they try to control perception this way. It's dishonest and disingenuous. Thanks for always telling the whole story, Ed!
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This would have been a better post.
AdventTech67 13th Jul 2009
You'd definitely get a lot more hits had you'd gone with this story

Microsoft_admits_new_ActiveX_zero_day_bug

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9135471/

I know now ZDNET is under the explicit directions of Microsoft. As for
the other websites being biased, how can it be when they are
exposing everything.

It's a shame that ZDNET is just as bad as Microsoft when it comes to
transparency.
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Contributr
Did you read the actual security bulletin?
Ed Bott Updated - 14th Jul 2009
It affects Office XP and Office 2003, programs that are 6 and 7 years old, respectively. The current version of Office is not affected, nor are any Office viewers, nor is any Windows version.

So tell me why it's so important and why it's relevant to this post?
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Because a lot of people and businesses still use those products
Michael Kelly 14th Jul 2009
There is little reason to upgrade when the upgrades give you little in value, plus require retraining due to the new ribbon which relocates everything from where they have traditionally been.

The down side of not upgrading, of course, is the security issues we are seeing. But given the choice of risking a *possible* security issue and risking *certain* training and compatibility issues, most businesses chose the former.
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Can you spell oxymoron?
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 14th Jul 2009
You should look it up if you don't already know what it means. Here - I'll even do it for you - hit this link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oxymoron

Okay, so you state that there is little reason for customers running older product to upgrade to newer products. And yet, you write this in response to a discussion about how only people using 6+ year-old products will be affected by a security bug.

Huh?

One of the biggest reasons one should keep up to date with new product releases is that products shipped > 5+ years ago were engineered well before today's state of the art hackery was in abundance. Many older products are not even supported any longer and therefore are unlikely to be patched to fix newly discovered security issues.

Had those companies NOT been responsible and upgraded to (at least) a newer, supported version of said product, they wouldn't have been affected by this particular issue.

If a new issue in their currently-supported product is discovered, however, then the vendor should fix it (such is the nature of supported products).
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Interesting when you think about it...
storm14k 14th Jul 2009
You sell me a product with security flaws and I have to pay large sums of money to upgrade and get the fix. Its a great business model but not so great for the customer. I'd avoid that trap.
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Obviously the security flaws were not so obvious
Patanjali 3rd Dec 2009
if it took so many years before anyone found them!

Bugs are one thing, though. The other thing about older software is that there was not the expectation that it would be exploited with so much gusto almost a decade down the track.

Later products are going to naturally incorporate the learning of the previous years, especially in regard to being resiliant to attack. Generally, older software can never be made to have the attack proofing without being re-engineered - into a new version, of course.
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The last I checked
Michael Kelly Updated - 14th Jul 2009
Office 2003 was still supported (edit: it has extended support, which means security patches are still made). And FYI we're not talking about 5+ years ago. 2 1/2 years ago it was the most current release. So by your standards if someone bought a product 2 1/2 years ago they should not expect support.
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Check again
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 14th Jul 2009
This flaw also affects Office 2000 has been in extended support since July 1st 2004 and expires ... TODAY!

Office XP has been in extended support (for which you have to pay per incident and may have to pay for patches) since July 12th 2006 and expires on July 12, 2011.

Office 2007, the current release, is in mainstream support until 4/10/2012 when it enters extended support which eventually expires on 4/11/2017. So, no, if you're on Office 2007, you're supported and have a while before you have to really consider upgrading. Of course, Office 2010 will be out next year and there's an overlap for you, like most other Microsoft customers, to plan and execute a pretty seamless and simple upgrade to the new version.
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Contributr
They are getting support
Ed Bott 14th Jul 2009
The new product was developed using SDL. Office 2003 was not.

Microsoft is fully supporting Office 2003. They've offered a security bulletin, a one-click Fix It workaround, and a patch that could very well appear out of band.

Of course Office 2003 customers should expect support.

And I repeat, what does this have to do with the topic of this post? Nothing. The original post was a silly attempt to change the subject.
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Ed, I agree this has gone far off topic
Michael Kelly 14th Jul 2009
The reason I responded is because you asked in reply to the original off-topic response why the security bulletin was so important to talk about. I was just stating why I thought it was an important subject to talk about (people who bought Office new less than 3 years ago are affected). I agree that this fact has nothing to do with your original piece.
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Clearly...
zkiwi 14th Jul 2009
People don't believe in being "responsible" and paying more for newer stuff.
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That is why the Macintosh has never taken hold.
xuniL_z Updated - 15th Jul 2009
But in reality, businesses buy software and hardware together more times than not, and either way it's a capital expendeture that can be written off over time. If your hardware comes with software, you can expense both off together over a period of time. Or you can split out the cost of the software and normally can expense it out over 3 years. The generally accepted accounting rules have determined that software is only relevant for 3 years I guess.

In any case, software is essential to almost every business in existence today. Healthcare organizations don't keep using the same monitoring and imaging equipment just because of the cost. It's essential to their business because newer technology draws and keeps more customers.

Anything that can help streamline processes and save money through productivity enhancement, thereby lowering cost can also be shown obviously as an ASSET. That means it PRODUCES revenue. The better the software system, the better the results, the better the payout.

That coupled with depreciation write offs and the ability to write down the cost of analyzing and producing inhouse software in the year the expense was incurred, or over time, it is easy for ANYONE to see that IT is very essential and just part of a company's assets.

With Microsoft, you pay once up front and don't pay again until well past depreciation and payback has occurred. Every windows shop that uses their software wisely comes out ahead in the long term. The cost is offset by the write-offs, reduction in production costs and reduction in development costs, which increasingly allow for richer and better inhouse code to be easily created, many times w/o the need for a developer to sit down and write a bunch of procedural code. Designers can write most of a GUI using WPF, for example, with declarative code.


Also, the increased capabilities lead to the ability to fine tune Business intelligence and get the information needed to everyone, when htey need it, thereby increasing revenues in any number of ways given the organization you are speaking of.

In healthcare it would mean a better chance at getting more payments from insurance in more more timely manner reducing AR days and increasing actual reimbursement. Anyone that knows anything about billing in an acute care hospital environment knows hte complexity of the coding and billing process and how it's easy to miss or lose reimbursement due to very small mistakes or even just not having information in a timely manner.

Thank you for letting me express my views.

Microsoft still is by far the most integrated and easily maintained system on the face of the earth. This is known by everyone, just some don't like the idea of that fact. Until that can be rivaled, Microsoft software is most often the best choice for the majority of your computing needs. Not to say others are not making progress, but also it's essential to point out that businesses don't have to dig into their piggy banks and buy software and then just write it up as 100% expense, end of story....as our Linux and OS X heroes woudl try to have you believe.
It's almost always an investment that will pay back beyond the amount of the original investment.

Thank you.
  • Flagged
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to xunil_Z
prof123 Updated - 23rd Jul 2009
If a large corporation has to get 50,000 W7 licenses,
that's a 5 to 10 million dollars expenditure. What
exactly is the business case? You talk about more
accurate billing... How is that related to W7? Billing
systems are applications which run on top of the OS. I
could see a business case for buying a better billing
system, but not a new version of Windows. This is
nonsense.

Capital expenditures are written off because you can
deduct them from earnings, so you pay less tax. This
doesn't mean they are free. A company is better off
not making those expenditures in the first place than
writing them off...

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@ prof123
rtk 23rd Jul 2009
any company with 50k in Windows licenses has a volume license agreement, they pay the same regardless of what version of windows the client is running.
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Because over 60% of...
zkiwi 14th Jul 2009
People out there are using XP or earlier. That's why it's important.
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Who's directions do you march to?
GuidingLight Updated - 14th Jul 2009
As it is quite obvious (even to the most inexperienced of readers) that you are under the explicit directions of one of Microsoft's competitors to post, and repost, that line of drivel here on these forums.

Do you move from site to site posting such things, or do your employers have a few people on payroll, with different sites assigned to you and your coworkers?
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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
beijing2008 Updated - 14th Sep
love and thanks for sharing replica hermes bags
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I agree...
Sleeper Service 14th Jul 2009
...it should surprise me that so many 'journalists' have either been suckered into printing a misrepresented article, copied their peers or are pushing their own rather tragic agendas but it doesn't. I think that says more about the current blogosphere than anything else.

Also, I see the peanut gallery have chimed in with their two weapons of choice - irrelevance and obfuscation. Again, no surprise there.
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Excellent article, Ed!
cnfrisch 13th Jul 2009
Thanks for the great article! Just shows how biased many news sources there are on the 'net!
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This is a great example of how statistics can be used to push an agenda
MissingMatter 13th Jul 2009
Take some data, add a little editorializing, and you have yourself some FUD.
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unfreakingbelieveable
eggmanbubbagee@... Updated - 13th Jul 2009
these writers are either terribly ignorant of how this stuff works or else are ludicrously biased against MS - or probably both

40% in a single year? This is a staggering adoption rate, historically speaking, if Windows 7 actually attains this it will be a massive triumph. What, BTW, was Vista's business adoption rate after a year?
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Contributr
Vista after one year...
Ed Bott 13th Jul 2009
..was about the same as XP after one year.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=352
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What was Vista's projected adoption rate...or XP's?
UGottaBKidding 14th Jul 2009
It seems to me that to compare projected
adoption to actual adoption is a little unfair
as we all recognize that sometimes people don't
follow through on a projected purchase.
Wouldn't it be better to compare projections of
Vista (or XP) adoption that were made a similar
amount of time ahead of release to see if
projected Win7 numbers are ahead of where XP or
Vista projections?
I'm assuming that studies of projected Vista
and XP adoption were made and that ZDNet has
the ability to go back into the archives to see
what they looked like. My guess is that Win 7
numbers will still look good as the public beta
has given people a chance to try before they
buy but it would be interesting to see actual
numbers comparing Apples to Apples (so to
speak)
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Contributr
Here's one survey
Ed Bott Updated - 16th Jul 2009
From CNET, Sept 2006. a few months before Vista RTM

http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-Fast-start-for-Vista-in-businesses/2100-1016_3-6121464.html

IDC expects a healthy adoption of Vista, Gillen said. "But we're not expecting it to be fundamentally different from previous releases of Windows," he said. IDC's projections suggest that 11 percent of business PCs that run Windows will be running Vista at the end of next year, Gillen said.

Rival analyst company Gartner expects the installed base of Vista in large enterprises to be about 10 percent a year and a half after it ships. "We're not hearing companies say they're in a rush to get their users to Vista," said Gartner analyst Michael Silver.

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Dinosaurs wiped out by Windows not by asteroid
paul2011 13th Jul 2009
Great article!
Bad news sell better happy

As for window 7 I am waiting for the release before buying my new laptop. I do not want Vista and although XP still works it has to go. Windows 7 has a better bluetooth support and is better on laptop batteries among other things.
Businesses would move to windows 7 eventually. There is only so much patching you can do on the old operating system.
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Kudos to Ed
ImRaptor 13th Jul 2009
Nice to see the facts presented as they are rather than an alarmist headline.
Definetly one of the most level headed articles thats been on ZDnet in quite awhile.
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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
KRemde 13th Jul 2009
Good write-up, Ed.

I thought it funny that in one of those negative, eye-grabbing stories, they claimed adoption rates for 2009 were going to be low.

Well.. yeah! It's coming out October 22nd, folks!
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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
kelleydr 13th Jul 2009
Welcome to the woefully true state of 'journalism' as we know it in the US: hype, hyperbole, distortion, unabashed bias, conceit, arrogance, and above all, shared ignorance.
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Ed Bott, December 30th, 2007
Mud27 13th Jul 2009
"I stumbled on an unexpected source of data that has helped me get a much better picture on what the actual numbers might be like. As it turns out, Dell has published a large database of information about its current inventory for anyone to see, and I was able to sift through it to form some surprising conclusions about the current relationship between XP and Vista in the PC marketplace. The short version: Consumers have embraced Vista overwhelmingly, whereas small business is much more reluctant, preferring XP by a better than 2-to-1 margin."

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=349
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Contributr
Yes, that was pretty good research
Ed Bott 13th Jul 2009
I'm quite proud of that post, still.

But, uh... What's the relevance in bringing it up here?
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Because it was total baloney.
Mud27 14th Jul 2009
Just like your current batch of speculative fiction.
  • Flagged
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Contributr
Of course
Ed Bott 14th Jul 2009
I showed all my work and linked to all the underlying evidence. So if someone is skeptical they can go examine for themseleves.

You, on the other hand, just call names without offering a shred of reason.

OK, got it. Thanks for playing.
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It's not a game when you're supposedly a "professional".
Mud27 14th Jul 2009
In that instance you conflated stuffing the OEM channel equates to "acceptance" or that "consumers choose Vista" because they're not provided with an alternative.

The underlying "truthiness" of your so-called analysis is that instead of the profound pseudo-conclusion that:

"Microsoft is on target in its mission to convert the consumer market to Vista through new PC sales"...

it appears that Vista will be killed at less than 22% penetration into a "market" dominated by Windows XP.

If you could figure out the basis for both of those actual occurrences instead of playing oracle with a crystal ball that is, to say the least, clouded you might have the chance of being something than the know-nothing nobody that you've remained for lo these many years.
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Nice lecture, but...
jamesrayg 15th Jul 2009
Vista sold 75% more than MS anticipated in the first 2 years (see wikipedia's Vista article), and it's adoption was higher than XPs as a percentage of market over same amount of time.

The only reason XP is on so many computers is because of how long it was on the market, if Vista was on the market 6 years before Win 7 was released, it would probably have a similar or higher market share.

Anything else you care to troll us about?
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Really?
Mud27 15th Jul 2009
"We're seeing positive indicators that we're already starting to move from the early adoption phase into the mainstream and that more and more businesses are beginning their planning and deployment of Windows Vista."

?We?ve not seen a lot of opportunity over the last 12 months for Vista,?...?It?s a very misunderstood product. It was poorly communicated and the market just did not know what to do with it. A lot of our clients just skipped Vista and are aiming for Windows 7, and it?s first time in my experience with Microsoft and Windows that we?ve been so far away from launch and had customers knocking on the door to start planning.?

Misunderstood. That's the ticket.

At least Vista wasn't competing with a one year old offering that was just about at the point where it wouldn't fall over under its own weight.

"market" != consumer OEM channel stuffing.

Wikiing your own history != anything to give a rip about.

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Hmm...
Sleeper Service 15th Jul 2009
...Aesop's fox springs to mind for some unknown reason.
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@mud
xuniL_z Updated - 15th Jul 2009
It never fails that one has no argument the moment s/he starts name calling.

I find it particularly offensive how people like you treat Ed Bott, whose given more to the IT industry than your pained soul could dream about...it's extremely small of you and very disturbing. I mean that on your behalf as well, because I believe you can change.

Your whining about "OEM channel stuffing" had no basis in reality.

What do you mean by OEM channel stuffing?
Apple has it's own channel, Sun had it's own channels and Google has made many deals with the OEMs to put it's "OS" (desktop) on millions of PCs. Adobe has succeeded in getting it's products on most every PC. Is that a monopoly on web media ware?
SUN has gotten Java to monopoly status as a runtime on most PCs in the world.
What is wrong fella? It isn't Linux you are worried about, it it? That is gratis software and not commercial. The OEMs are not charitible outfits, that would be Red Cross and Unicef et al. Essentially, anyone that beleives OEMs should put up the cost to load and configure Linux at a very high risk of losing money are quite misguided about business in general.
You see, Sleeper Service said it very succinctly, but I do believe you have anger generated from envy. The OEMs are not keeping MS on top and stopping Linux. There are thousands of billionaires and VC groups and capital in the market to build Linux only channels, but you see even those inside the Linux world will not put up for a linux distribution channel because they know it's a losing proposition. Taht is just reality and the price paid for being "free". It's like getting mad at your neighbor for not paying attention to you, while your Father ignores you constantly.

Please try to get over it and live your life and breathe and relax.

That might allow you to rid the anger that seems to make you very mean to other people quite arbitrarily, which is not a good thing.
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Mud, you're logic is flawed
notsofast 17th Jul 2009
You imply that people only use Vista because they have to, while those who got XP got it because it was the best OS evah.

People went with windows XP, because it came with their PC. The vast majority of people didn't upgrade an older machine to XP. The same is true for Vista and it will also be true for Vista.

All of these statistics are imperfect, but unless you're going to spend millions of dollars doing research in sales patterns as well as personal interviews with consumers who have Vista, you'll never have the full picture.

In the end, I don't know many that have issues with Vista. Have I seen Vista installs go badly (sometimes fairly early on)? Yes. I've also seen countless people at work have a variety of issues with XP on brand new machines (think 5 minutes for Outlook to come up or 3 minutes for Word to open, if you open it by clicking on a document icon).

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Say what?
linux for me 14th Jul 2009
"The short version: Consumers have embraced Vista overwhelmingly, whereas small business is much more reluctant, preferring XP by a better than 2-to-1 margin.

Consumers didn't embrace Vista at all! It was forced down their throats because it was the only OS offered to them on their new PC purchase!

Businesses failed to upgrade to Vista based on costs of hardware upgrades, software licensing costs, training, and most important, labor costs of performing tha actual upgrades. This will also happen when Windows 7 comes out. Especially in this current economy.
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That's not true
MissingMatter 14th Jul 2009
"It was forced down their throats because it was the only OS offered to them on their new PC purchase!"

In 2007 when this data was published, most, if not all Dell computers had an XP option. Even now, many of them still do.
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Except that...
zkiwi 14th Jul 2009
Most people (consumers) who buy a PC will get whatever the latest thing is, both as an attempt to get a longer life out of it and in the hope that the "New Windows" will be better'n the old.

That and you won't find too many BestBuy etc stores with new computers running XP on their shop display. So, most people wouldn't even know XP was an option anymore.
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The survey
LiquidLearner 14th Jul 2009
was based on information posted by Dell, where you order direct through their online store. Where it was very clear you had the choice of XP or Vista. The bottom line is most people like Vista, outside of the people who bought in the first 6 months when OEMs were pushing out woefully underpowered machines full of junk software and terrible drivers.

Bringing up Best Buy has nothing to do with the article Ed wrote in 2007.
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"it was very clear you had the choice of XP or Vista"
jacarter3 14th Jul 2009
You can choose XP Pro over Vista at the Sony Style site too. Just expect it to be real hard to find and limited to only certain older models, very much like Dell...

As for brick and mortar vendors, I have never ever seen a store stock a single computer with XP Pro on it other than some netbooks and these have XP Home (cuz they ain't got the Horse Power to run any flavor of Vista). Which brings me to my next point, you're more likely to find a Linux computer in the store than an XP Pro based machine...
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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
zephyr1977 13th Jul 2009
I'm not really a Windows proponent, but I have to agree with you here. I read one of the negative stories and my first thought was "so what?". 60% not adopting an OS in it's first year of release is nothing surprising or new. Economy aside, companies usually like to wait for at least 1 SP so a lot of the release bugs can be worked out. and yes a 40% adoption rate in the first year is very good. I think what will affect its adoption rate more than anything is if the final release will maintain the performance advantages it has over Vista on older hardware. Companies stretching their IT budget may be willing to upgrade to Windows 7 but not if it means getting new hardware.
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- SP1
adondai 14th Jul 2009
I'll be interested to see if an SP1 makes much difference to Win7 adoption - pretty sure the idea with this release was to get away from that mentality.
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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
kodakmak 13th Jul 2009
Are these IT guys predicting their company's upgrades or the decision maker (purse Strings)?
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Oy Vey...! What's the world coming to?
Wolfie2K3 13th Jul 2009
I checked out a few of the links... Seems the PC World article was penned by David Coursey - formerly of CNet. I used to read him - back in the day he actually had a halfway decent column. Now he goes by "Tech Inciter" - Is he trying to incite a riot or something?
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No - not a riot ... he earns his paycheck through hits
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 14th Jul 2009
Most of these sites are free to read because they sell advertizing. The more hits they get, the more money they earn. Therefore, the more inflamatory they can be, the more hits they'll get, the more likely it is that they can pay their bills.

Ed's lucky - it's so fashionable to be down on Microsoft these days that any "sensible" article he posts (like this one - great job Ed happy, is actually inflamatory to a sufficient number that they just have to wade in with their guns blazing and mouths foaming.

So Ed just gets to post "sense & logic" and he gets enormous hits happy
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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
adondai 14th Jul 2009
I'm just getting sick of hearing this story in general. Every single time a MS OS comes out we hear the same thing, businesses see no need to upgrade, blady blah blah... oh what a failure
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RE: The echo chamber misreads another Windows 7 survey
FAULKNE 13th Oct
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