PC World has an article “Will Businesses Skip Windows Vista Altogether?” It’s been a year since Windows Vista has been released, and Service Pack 1 or SP1 isn’t even released yet - currently scheduled for delivery first quarter of 2008. They say the new version of Windows scheduled for release in late 2009 or 2010 is code named “Windows 7″. When SP1 for Vista comes out, Windows Server 2008 will be released at the same time. Microsoft is claiming that an all-time record number of companies have purchased or renewed their Windows desktop licenses in 2007. Of course their claim is “why would business do this unless they intended to deploy Windows Vista?” I’ll tell you why Mr. Marketing Genius - because businesses HAVE to have (at this point) licenses for Windows desktops period - just to function. To “renew” or purchase their licenses and support agreements is in NO way an indicator of Windows Vista desktop adoption in the Enterprise.

This eWeek article says that a record number of companies are beginning to test Vista. Get that? Test Vista. The same article talks about tools Microsoft has released to “accelerate the adoption” of Vista. Wow. They’re being really “pro-active” for a “record number of companies” having licensed or purchased Windows desktop licenses in 2007. It sounds more like they’re scrambling.

The Baltimore Sun reports that Leopard is huge in Japan, in fact it was only on sale 6 days in October and yet took more than 50% of sales for the entire month of packaged OS sales there. So far, it’s doing 40%+ in November. It’s nearest competitor, Windows XP Home, is only 10%, and Vista is (of course) less than that.

Yet another eWeek article states that less than 2% of businesses have adopted Windows Vista to date. Supposedly “more than half” of companies have concrete plans to deploy Vista, but slowly. They also state that inquiries of Linux desktops have sharply increased.

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