Vista's biggest problem is Windows XP

Vista's biggest problem is Windows XP:


Computerworld reports on a recent survey of nearly 600 U.S. and European companies that have more than 1,000 employees; the study says 84 percent of all those companies' PCs now run Windows XP, up from 67 percent the year before."

That sounds pretty good for the Windows monopoly, right? So, one could assume that Vista should start to creep into those numbers.

Nearly a third of the polled businesses--32 percent to be exact--said they would begin deploying Vista by the end of 2008, while another 17 percent said they would start in
2009 or 2010.

Still good, right?

But more than half of all companies remain skittish about Vista, according to Forrester's data.

What's interesting is that many open-source companies find their biggest competition to be themselves--that is, the free version of their products. What Microsoft is competing with is the absorbed-cost version of Windows XP that customers already have. But XP wasn't actually free. Customers were bonked on the head to move from W2K (and I would say it was a good upgrade) and now are being strong-armed to upgrade to Vista, which has minimal upside.
Vista simply isn't compelling enough to upgrade.