IT Pros Clinging to Windows XP in Droves
Here's something we just don't get. After two-plus years, two Service Packs, and widespread recognition that Vista is "fixed," a new survey suggests that a whopping 96% of IT professionals are still running Windows XP, and nearly half of those plan to keep running it "indefinitely." What the @#$!? Let's look a little closer. The survey, conducted on TechRepublic, asked readers a series of questions about their current and future operating systems. Out of 13,332 respondents (to date), 96% said their organization is "still using Windows XP as the primary OS."
About 45% said that when the time comes, they'll move straight to Windows 7--but nearly the same percentage said they had no plans to switch. Why? Here's where the survey gets really interesting. When asked the main reason for delaying their OS migration, a full 63% answered, "XP works perfectly fine, we are waiting for a reason to make the change." So if we're reading into this properly, IT professionals know XP, they like XP, and they see absolutely no reason to abandon XP. That said, there's one major flaw in this data: There's no way to know who voted. Granted, like Simplify PC Solutions, TechRepublic is trafficked largely by IT pros. But are they actually the decision-makers for their organizations? Do their answers represent mere wishful thinking as opposed to concrete plans? Hopefully company CIOs are informed enough to recognize that Vista and Windows 7 offer tremendous advantages in terms of security, deployment, management, and end-user experience. |
