Move to Vista will be slow, say analysts

BEAN COUNTERS AT Forrester Research are warning that punters will not rush to buy Microsoft's new super soaraway operating system Vista.

The Vole had already suspected that businesses would be a bit slow on taking up the new operating system, but a report from Forrester suggests the consumer market will not be interested either.

Microsoft had been hoping that Vista will be adopted twice as fast as any other Windows client OS. But Forrester analyst Ted Schadler said that customer households will adopt Vista only when they buy a new PC.

Schadler said that consumers will follow the same pattern that they did for the roll-out of Windows XP. They only buy computers when the old ones break, when the prices come down far enough, or when a lifestyle event triggers the purchase.

It took consumers four years before they had mostly moved to XP.

Schadler report, "A Forecast of Windows Consumer Adoption" says more than 76 percent of PC-owning US households are running Windows XP.

Although Vista has some improvements to security and user interface, none of those merits the disruption of installing it. Vole needs to make sure that there are some new applications for Vista that will provide substantial value-add and wow consumers, he said.

His view is that more than 12 million US households will own Vista in 2007. This will grow to 73 million households by 2011.

The report is here. µ