In November 2007, a King Research study revealed that the majority of IT administrators had no plans to adopt Vista and were looking at alternatives like Mac OS X and Linux. KACE, a systems management company in Mountain View, Calif., commissioned King Research to revisit the study, and the results showed that even fewer IT managers than before plan to deploy Vista, despite the release of SP1.

The new study consisted of an online survey of over 1,100 IT managers and asked them about the impact of Vista and OS adoption strategies. A key finding was that "IT departments of all sizes have growing concerns about deploying Vista, and are even choosing to deploy alternative operating systems instead. This trend has lead to a new set of challenges, such as the difficulties derived from managing multiple operating systems and a lack of familiarity with non-Windows alternative operating systems."

"The second version of the Vista Adoption Trends survey clearly demonstrates Microsoft is still fighting an uphill battle with Vista and the release of Vista Service Pack 1 did little to change corporate opinion about the operating system," said Diane Hagglund of King Research and the survey?s author. "These same IT departments are evaluating alternative methods to stave off Vista deployment with many moving to the Mac operating system instead. This brings up a whole new set of challenges related to managing heterogeneous environments and compounds the importance of systems management devices that deliver a single interface for diverse operating systems."

A summary of the findings:

• 60 percent of the survey respondents indicated they have no plans to deploy Vista at this time, up from 53 percent in the 2007 survey [Emphasis: TMO]
• 92 percent indicated Vista Service Pack 1 has not changed their plans for Vista deployment
• 65 percent said it is challenging to obtain the expertise needed to manage multiple operating systems, up from 49 percent in November 2007
• 83 percent revealed they are concerned about the compatibility of required business software with Vista
• 41 percent of the respondents reported it is challenging to secure multiple operating systems, up from 25 percent in November 2007

"This King Research study suggests that businesses continue to hold off on broad-based Windows adoption due to compatibility, performance, and training concerns," said Rob Meinhardt, co-founder and CEO of KACE. "This delay in Vista adoption is leaving the window open longer for Mac and Linux to sneak onto the corporate desktop...."

The report detailed its methodology, including the use of an independent database of IT professionals in small, medium and large IT organizations. The second survey of 1,162 participants was conducted in June 2008.