twitter's Journal: Bernstein Web Survey: 2011 Vista Plans Drop from 68% to 26%

Most companies are scaling back their Vista plans.

Noted Microsoft bull Charles DiBona at Sanford C. Bernstein said that [... a] survey of 372 IT professionals found that they now expect only 26 percent of their firms computers to run Vista by 2011, down from 68 percent a year ago.

This confirms earlier expressions of dissatisfaction and plans to skip the troubled OS. Business Week wonders how much more than DiBona says this will hurt M$'s revenues. Ben Worthen, at the Wall Street Journal, notes that this represents a change in one of M$'s traditional strong holds:

For years, Microsoft could count on information-technology departments to support the company through thick and thin. But over the last year, support among IT departments for the Windows Vista operating system has dropped substantially.

The survey respondents said that they were turned off by Vistas price tag buying the new operating system usually means buying a new computer as well as well as its performance and how well it works with other software and hardware that businesses run.

DiBona unrealistically expects these same shops will migrate to Windows 7 in 2010. IT customers are already feeling burned by M$'s "Assurance" plans, are frustrated with XP problems and hoped that Vista would offer real improvements. Because XP itself was a let down from W2K, people are surely looking elsewhere by now.