As you might possibly have heard, most organizations weren't too excited about Windows Vista--and a sizable number elected to skip the OS altogether, instead staying the course with Windows XP.

But Windows 7? That's a different story. According to Computerworld's Robert L. Mitchell, most IT professionals plan to make the move to Windows 7, and do so within a year--if they haven't already.

In other words, Windows 7 has rapidly gained the kind of enterprise acceptance that Vista never managed. Here's an excerpt from the story:

Computerworld surveyed 285 IT professionals to gauge their attitudes and intentions with regard to Windows 7. Overall, 72% said they plan to migrate to Windows 7, with 70% saying they will implement it within a year or that they already are installing the new OS.

The number one reason cited for upgrading: To get off the aging Windows XP platform. That said, however, almost 40% of survey respondents will take XP support to the end--April 2014--before they install Windows 7 on all their Windows machines.

What's particularly interesting is that a number of organizations aren't even planning to wait for Service Pack 1--traditionally the jumping-off point for migrating to a new OS. The corporate mentality has long been to wait for Microsoft to fix anything major (via SP1) before making the move. But apparently Windows 7 proved itself robust and reliable enough during the beta and RC phases to warrant more immediate adoption.

Another interesting takeaway: most organizations will deploy Windows 7 by way of new PCs, not upgrades. We continue to think that's the smarter choice, as newer hardware will better leverage the operating system's newer technology, while at the same time overcoming the obstacles of in-place upgrades.

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No, not The IT Crowd, but rather IT decision-makers.