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Vista's stiff hardware requirements leave many PCs in the dark

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Even though analysts predict that over 90 million copies of Windows Vista will ship next year -- far greater than the 67 million mark reached by Windows XP at the one year mark -- it might be a bumpy upgrade path for many businesses. Vista pushes PC hardware further than any previous version of Windows. Many business PCs will get stepped over when it comes to upgrades as a result.

Softchoice Research has determined that roughly half of all business PCs in North America won't make the grade when it comes to baseline requirements for Windows Vista. Likewise, only 6% of business PCs meets the baseline requirements for a "Vista Premium" label. eWeek reports:

<I>The inventory data used in the study represents a total of 112,113 desktops from 472 North American organizations in the financial, health care, technology, education and manufacturing sectors... Vista's minimum CPU requirements have increased 243 percent from those of Windows XP, which in turn had a much smaller increase of 75 percent from Windows 2000's CPU requirements.