Windows Vistaster: The “Ow” Starts Now
by John Paczkowski
Posted on August 18, 2008 at 2:29 PM PT
Windows Vista may end up being the least-desired best-selling OS in the history of operating systems. New research suggests that more than one in three new Vista PCs is downgraded to Windows XP. Performance and metrics researcher Devil Mountain Software reports that its survey of over 3,000 Vista PCs revealed nearly 35 percent to be running XP. “Either these machines were downgraded by [sellers like] Dell (DELL) or HP (HPQ), or they were downgraded by the user after they got the machine,” Devil Mountain CTO Craig Barth told ComputerWorld. “In any case, these machines are no longer running Vista.”
An interesting data point to consider in light of Microsoft (MSFT) chairman Bill Gates’s claim earlier this year that sales of Windows Vista had reached 140 million copies worldwide. If Devil Mountain’s figures are accurate, Vista’s installed base is likely quite a bit less than that. That revelation is a humbling blow for Microsoft, which has been doing its damnedest to convince consumers that Vista is an OS worth running.
Comments
As I’ve mentioned before, for government agencies and big companies, Microsoft sells a license, no more than a signed contract in exchange for big fee, that grants customer the right to run Vista or any previous version of Windows. They book those as Vista sales and have no way of knowing what the customer actually runs as they provide absolutely nothing to the customer other than a signed piece of paper.
Oh and an agreement to answer the phone if you call for support: “Is the machine plugged in?, turned on? try rebooting, reinstalling, reformatting and reinstalling, change machine name, change your name, move to another location, another country, did any of that work?”
Posted by Mac Beach at August 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pmI hit preview and it submitted (I think). Anyway, I was going to add that I asked at the big government agency I used to work with and they are still not running Vista although licensed to do so. That’s over 40K Vista vaporware sales right there.
Posted by Mac Beach at August 18th, 2008 at 8:20 pmWalt had a similar column the other day; fact is, and many people still don’t know this, if you buy a new PC from a custom builder (there are a number of boutique shops out there) you can order your system with XP. Boutique systems builders are able to continue providing customers with XP well into next year; companies like Puget Systems, for example, out of Seattle can walk you through a system build, enable you to build a system that’s right for you and within your budget AND allow you to have XP preinstalled. One key benefit of going with a custom builder instead of the big names.
Posted by Kevin Bourke at August 19th, 2008 at 5:18 amClearly, we need to chat, Mac Beach.
Posted by John Paczkowski at August 19th, 2008 at 8:16 am