Everybody still hates Vista, it seems. A new survey from systems management specialist KACE -- which makes products that watch the health of other computer products -- finds that 60% of respondents won't upgrade to the new Windows operating system. KACE last administered the survey in November; only 50% planned to avoid the upgrade then.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), for its part, won't concede that there's trouble with Vista. To the contrary; the company says that it has sold 180 million licenses of the OS. But that's a misleading statistic: Every copy to box makers such as Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) counts as a license.
And let's not forget that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is selling more Macs than ever and that some users are buying them to run Windows. Technically, this is a victory for Microsoft; but it's probably a much bigger one for Mr. Mac.
Vista's failed success -- you can't call 180 million copies sold a pure failure -- is becoming comical. News.com recently reported that half of the once-vaunted "Wintel" alliance, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), planned to stay with XP. "This isn't a matter of dissing Microsoft, but Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista," News.com quoted a source inside Intel as saying.
Apparently they're not the only ones. Good luck, Mr. Softy, you're going to need it.
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Fool contributor Tim Beyers didn't own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article at the time of publication. He seeks the best of tech as a member of the Motley Fool Rule Breakers team. Get a daily dose of Tim's Foolish musings via this feed for your RSS reader.
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