The Vista thaw is finally coming to business

But can it take the heat from Windows 7?

While Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system is still only running on 10 per cent of business desktops in North America and Europe, there are signs a thaw could be coming.

According to a report by analyst house Forrester Research, there is evidence that Vista adoption is accelerating, with 31 per cent of companies saying they've already started to deploy Vista within their organisation.

Another 26 per cent of respondents said they're planning to start Vista implementation this year or later.

However, a significant proportion of businesses are still aiming to dodge the OS altogether. According to Forrester Research, 15 per cent of respondents are planning to skip Vista and move straight onto its successor, Windows 7.

Currently, Windows XP continues to dominate running on 71 per cent of business PCs across North America and Europe. In comparison, Apple's Mac OS X powers three per cent of enterprise computers and Linux - more than half of which is Red Hat - is used on two per cent.

Forrester Research quizzed more than 950 IT decision makers from companies of more than 1,000 employees in North America and Europe.