41 Percent Businesses Planning for Windows 7

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Windows 7 to penetrate businesses quickly.

Many reports hitting the internet today say something to the effect that six out of 10 businesses are planning on skipping Windows 7, which paints somewhat of a bleak picture.

Taken in perspective, however, the fact that four out of 10 businesses are already planning upgrades to Windows 7 is a monumental win for Microsoft. First of all, it's important to note that a survey was asking IT departments regarding their upgrade plans for the release of Windows 7 to the end of 2010. So the real statistic is that 41 percent of businesses plan on upgrading to the new OS between September 1, 2009 (for businesses with volume licenses) and December 31, 2010.

Given that most businesses prefer to wait at least a year or for the first Service Pack before adopting a new OS, the early commitment to go to Windows 7 is something Microsoft should be very proud of.

Even ScriptLogic, the firm that did the survey, pointed out in its findings the following telling statistic, with regards: "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%."

Tip of the hat to Ed Bott and his ZDNet blog for his graph plotting the growth of Windows 7 compared to Windows XP.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cruiseoveride
    What do you see mystic crystal ball...
    "41 Percent Businesses filing for bankruptcy"
    Reply
  • apmyhr
    I'm glad sites are finally pointing this out. For days, I have been seeing headlines from microsoft hating sites such as PC World saying "6 out of 10 businesses wont upgrade to windows 7!" Its amazing how you can use numbers to say whatever you want.
    Reply
  • Geeez..... try again and get your percentages correct....

    20000 companies got a survey and of those only 1000 answered.

    You say 41% of those will deploy... so that's 2% of the 20000 surveyed.

    2 percent... not 41 percent.
    Reply
  • mdillenbeck
    Hmmm... Windows XP actual versus 7 projected - is that a fair comparison? How about do both projected plus XP actual, that way we can see if Microsoft was equally overconfident about XP when it was about to be released.

    My school will probably be going 7, but I can tell you it will not happen during a school year. Thus, it will be summer 2010 before we have a go at it.

    As for companies, if XP does everything they want it to then why should they invest money at this time in products that does nothing for them?

    That's the problem with these companies - they forget the nature of their business. If you make the "perfect" document maker, then people will not need to buy a new version. How many gimmicks can you really add before it becomes useless bloat? Same thing with an OS, which makes the Google OS an interesting concept. Rip the bloat out and minimize.
    Reply
  • aft_lizard01
    StatsGeeez..... try again and get your percentages correct....20000 companies got a survey and of those only 1000 answered. You say 41% of those will deploy... so that's 2% of the 20000 surveyed.2 percent... not 41 percent.Do you honestly believe that tripe you just typed? I am guessing you do.

    I will tell you this after having worked for Gallup for a short time I can tell you point blank that the majority of people do not answer or want to be bothered with a survey. Yet quite often the results are fairly accurate. When you see presidential polls there is at least 10 times or more people who didn't answer the phone or just hung up, that is just the way it is. Yet because of methodology you can pretty accurately predict the results of an election to with in a margin of error.


    Reply
  • kmf00
    Probably a lot of businesses will see Windows 7 as Vista SP3 and therefore do not care to wait until Windows 7 SP1 is released...
    Reply
  • dechy
    Exactly. Most businesses have already gone through the Vista assessment a while back, and now pitted VS Windows 7, it's REALLY like Vista what should of been like. The beta was GODLY stable, the RC fixed a couple of compatibility issues and with the advent of RTM, most of the work is like "déjà vue".

    Also, it's a little bit less hungry than Vista, and we're far and beyond what PCs were when Vista was about to come out.

    From a business standpoint, the only BIG factor remaining is license pricing; those who have CLM agreements (or any other licensing scheme) already are probably fully covered for the full fleet upgrade. Getting things to work in Windows 7 isn't nearly as bad, what with Vista being the test bed & general "we know what's coming down the pipe" feeling devs have experienced and prepared for.

    Waiting for an SP for this particular OS really isn't needed... and this coming from THE guy working on getting this OS prepped for release in one of the biggest dept (if not the biggest) in the Canadian Fed govt.

    I just wish x64 was on my plate... #$^#$%#@ 32 bit crap.
    Reply
  • belardo
    Lets see... Windows 7 runs on older hardware, better than Vista. It's more refined, not as slow.

    As one of the regular Vista "haters". I have Win7 on a 1995 AMD 939 system with 2GB of RAM and it runs great. Some software issues are needed to be worked out still :( But the computer boots up faster than XP, shuts down in about 3 seconds. I had the entire task bar full of programs running at the same time. Yet switching programs and moving windows about wasn't a slow-motion experience.

    I'm working on a NEW Vista computer... slow slow slow. Worked on one last weak, usual unpleasant experience.

    I'm not completely happy with Windows7. It still does some stupid vista personality stuff. But its good parts are nice.

    Even one of my clients with 15 computers & notebooks with ALL XP / Office 2003 will be upgrading to Windows7/Office2010. We totally skipped Vista/Office2007. Some of the newer boxes are Win7 ready, actually - perhaps overkill since ALL new systems have 4GB of RAM. While I expected Win7 to be better... I didn't expect it to bet THAT much better. A 2GB Win7 system *IS* fine for most people. The older PCs will be replaced... since they are 3~5 years old (by 2010).

    Vista has about 22% of the PC Market. XP rules... for now. But I see Windows7 easily hitting 25% in its first year... if not 40%.
    Reply
  • ThisIsMe
    Why do people keep talking about XP like it the best thing since sliced bread?!! I bet 90% of the businesses that use Windows XP today didn't do anywhere close to a majority roll out until at least 2005. That's right, I said 2005!!! That's 4 years after it was released!!

    Even if only 10% of the businesses migrate to Windows 7 in the first year, it's still a huge win for MS. Especially if those 10% are successful and profitable. Then you'll most likely see at least another 30-50% over the next year, once they see their competition outdate them by nearly a DECADE!!
    Reply
  • ravenware
    Many reports hitting the internet today say something to the effect that six out of 10 businesses are planning on skipping Windows 7, which paints somewhat of a bleak picture.

    Not surprising at all, well I am surprised the ration isn't higher; like 8/10.

    I do not see the point of upgrading to windows7 on the professional side, especially if your office runs custom applications or GNU tools.
    I use server '08 daily on a terminal machine and hit has several problems.
    The only thing I like about the os is the explorer navigation which prevents tons of backtracking through directories, other than that XP/Server03 is better. It is faster, more reliable and versatile. (supposedly '08/NT 6+ runs VirtualMachine environments better but I haven't compared them in that area)
    Reply