Survey says most companies won't deploy Windows 7

IT administrators cite application compatibility concerns plus time and resources as the primary reasons

Nearly six in 10 companies have no current plans to deploy Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, due for release in October, according to a new survey.

Of 1,100 IT administrators who responded to the survey, 59.3 percent said they didn't have a plan to deploy Windows 7. ScriptLogic, a company that makes software tools for Microsoft's Windows OS, published the survey.

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About 81.8 percent of respondents cited time and resources or application compatibility concerns as the biggest barriers to deploying Windows 7. Other lesser concerns were deployment and migration, hardware support and migration of user settings. The survey represents a point in time, so companies could change their opinion.

The survey results may be somewhat disheartening for Microsoft, but not entirely unexpected. The company saw slow initial uptake of its Windows Vista OS, in part due to application compatibility concerns. With Microsoft's Vista OS, many large enterprises chose to wait until the company released Vista's first service pack.

But 34 percent said they expected to deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010, with 5.4 percent expected to install the OS by the end of the year.

According to figures published by analyst IDC earlier this month, Windows 7 is expected to account for half of the client OSes that Microsoft ships for corporate users by the fall of 2010, or around 58 million copies. By contrast, Vista shipments are predicted to sell just 18 million copies in 2010, comprising 15 percent of Windows OSes sold.

The current economic situation may also have an impact on Windows 7 uptake. When asked how their departments are saving money, 34.8 percent of respondents to the survey said they skipped upgrades or delayed purchases. Some 84.3 percent of respondents also said that the current economic conditions had impacted investments in data-center infrastructure, desktop hardware and systems-management software.

However, 29.2 percent said they saved money by investing in software that would make their operations more efficient, such as virtualization technologies. Others said they cut costs by laying off employees or implementing hiring freezes.