A survey conducted by corporate IT management firm ScriptLogic found that 60% of respondents are planning on just saying no to Windows 7. The reasons for that rejection are divided, but the end result is that only 34% of respondents plan on migrating by the end of 2010, and even fewer, 5.4%, plan on migrating in 2009.
The economy is at the heart of the issue, with 42.7% respondents citing a lack of time and resources as the biggest barrier to deploying Windows 7. Another 39.1% are most concerned about application compatibility, an issue likely likely to be resolved as time marches forward.
ScriptLogic offered a further breakdown of those who cited a lack of time and resources as their big barrier to a Windows 7 future. 37.3% of those respondents said they had already skipped software upgrades and delayed purchases in order to save money, which emphasizes the role the economy might be playing in these results.
Only 7.5% of respondents were concerned about hardware requirements, though that was a major source of angst in the IT world ahead of the Vista rollout.
The key to this story, though, is the nature of the source. ScriptLogic's survey was a survey of 20,000 customers, not a random sample with a control. That means the results are not necessarily representative, and could well be influenced by the predisposition of those who were motivated to respond.
That aspect has been largely ignored by the mainstream and tech press that has gravitated towards this story in a moment of schadenfreude at Microsoft's expense.