Almost a year on from the release of Microsoft's Windows Vista, only 13 percent of companies say they expect to move all desktops to the operating system, according to a survey released this week. Furthermore, adoption of Linux continues to gather pace, with a particular emphasis on the desktop emerging.
A survey of 961 independently selected IT professionals found that 90 percent still have concerns about the migration to Vista, and 48 percent have not yet deployed Vista in any way. Forty-four percent said they are "considering" alternative operating systems — mostly Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Red Hat Linux, Suse Linux and Ubuntu.
But analyst Clive Longbottom of Quocirca advised caution when interpreting the figures. "Very few places are looking at Linux as a replacement for Microsoft," he said.
Longbottom disputes the widely held belief that users will find it easier to upgrade to Linux than to adapt to Vista's new GUI. "It does take a bit of time to find things on Vista, but most people do the majority of the transfer themselves and require less than an hour's worth of training," he said. And, while Linux might be free, there could be a lot of effort involved in transferring things like Word and Excel macros, he warned.