Vista's Debut Makes More of a Splash With Big Businesses Than Expected, Research Group Says NEW YORK (AP) -- Business customers snapped up Microsoft Corp.'s Vista operating system at a slower rate than they did with Windows XP five years earlier, but made more of a splash than most industry watchers expected, according to a research group.
In December, Vista's first full month on the market, businesses spent nearly 4 percent less acquiring licenses to upgrade their operating systems than they did when Windows XP hit the shelves in November 2001, according to NPD Group.
And even though Vista will soon replace XP as the default operating system sold with personal computers, XP still outsold Vista in terms of new copies of enterprise licenses in December.
But NPD Group analyst Chris Swenson said Vista trailed by a narrower gap than expected, especially given that Microsoft's main marketing push, which will coincide with the consumer launch of Vista at the end of January, is still weeks away. XP, on the other hand, launched its consumer and business versions -- and its major marketing campaign -- all at once.
Some software-industry watchers expected businesses to adopt Vista slowly, believing that IT departments would upgrade only when they replaced aging hardware. Analysts expect it will take several years for Vista computers to outnumber XP computers in the workplace.
But in the December figures, Swenson saw an early indicator that big companies may be interested in adopting Vista sooner than expected.
When XP first went on sale, twice as many large and mid-sized companies bought volume licenses as small companies. During Vista's first month, the ratio was seven to three.
"That says that the large enterprises are actually very interested in this technology," Swenson said.
Shares of Microsoft gained $1.04, or 3.5 percent, to close at $30.70 on the Nasdaq, after hitting a 52-week high of $30.75 earlier in the day.
11-Jan-2007, 09:58 PM
Big Biz Buys Vista, Research Group Says
Linear Mode
