XP and Vista: A Look at the Numbers

Posted by Ben Worthen

Popular opinion is that Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system is a dud, a view fueled in part by a low adoption rate among businesses. But a look back at history shows why it may be premature to write Vista off.

Numbers never lie. But they don’t always tell the whole truth.

By the end of 2007, businesses computers running Vista accounted for just 3% of the nearly 1 billion computers in use worldwide, according to the research company Gartner. Sounds dismal, but that’s the same percentage that ran the business version of Microsoft’s previous OS, XP, in 2002, the first year after its release. (Out of 582 million total computers.) By the end of 2003, business computers running XP accounted for 10% of the total. Gartner projects that by the end of this year, business computers running Vista will make up 13% of all computers.

That puts Vista ahead of its predecessor’s pace, and bolsters Microsoft’s argument that Vista adoption is inline with the company’s expectations. “The numbers are the numbers,” Gartner’s George Shiffler tells the Business Technology Blog. “I can’t refute them.” But he adds that they don’t tell the whole story. “Vista is certainly facing headwinds,” he says.

Shiffler compares the metrics to a baseball batting average – a useful measure but not a complete picture. A batter with a .300 batting average might at first glance appear better than a player with a .290 average. But if the player with the lower average hits a lot of homeruns and draws walks, he might be more valuable.

In this case, there just isn’t a lot of enthusiasm for Vista among businesses, many of whom view it as an unnecessary expense. Rather than train employees on the new OS and inspect software to make sure its compatible with Vista, many businesses are downgrading new computers to XP, Shiffler says.

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