Vista Increasingly Adopted by Businesses and Gamers, Report Suggests

With the next big Microsoft operating system already looming in the form of a Windows 7 beta, many home and business users are beginning to look past Windows Vista. However, a controversial new report from Computerworld suggests that the fat lady may not have yet belted out her final note.

In a recent article, Computerworld columnist Eric Lai suggested that at least two significant segments in the tech population have begun to adopt the maligned 2007 operating system. Lai cites a survey last month by Valve Corporation, which found that more than one-third of gamers playing online are using Vista. That's nearly double Valve's findings in August, which stated that only about 18 per cent of about two million gamers were actually using the most recent OS.

Lai also looks to a survey of North American and European corporations performed by Forrest Research Inc last week. According to that study, about one-third of businesses have also decided to make the plunge, albeit late, into Vista. Those findings led Forrester analyst Ben Gray to remark, "Windows Vista is finally shaping out to be the operating system that dethrones Windows XP." (Source: computerworld.com)

But, is it? Forum poster Mike Ramsay snapped back, "Oh come on, gamers aren't voluntarily switching to Vista; they're buying new, faster computers, and that's all they can get."

Livid "Anonymous" remarked, "Wow, this report is so biased I could feel the money changing hands."

Computerworld's report also fails to fit with other industry studies. Techspot.com recently found that less than about 10 per cent of business computers had adopted Vista and most were looking forward to Windows 7, set for release in another year. "The further we get from the Vista launch and closer to a Windows 7 launch, the more it seems that Vista may be skipped over by many," said Techspot writer Justin Mann. (Source: techspot.com)

Lai infers that Vista might actually be chipping away at XP, which dropped 16 per cent to a (still-dominant) 71 per cent share.

With less than a year until the release of Microsoft's next operating system, it seems hard to believe that anyone would predict a surge in Vista's popularity. However, given word of heavy Microsoft layoffs and the comparably short turnaround since Vista's release just two years ago, it's possible that Windows 7 will have its own problems to deal with.