Vista adopted faster than XP during same time frame

People in general don’t like anything new that requires getting “used to.” That may be part of the problem with Vista. According to a new article it seems it has been forgotten that XP wasn’t particularly popular when it was first released.

It has been 21 months since Vista was released to the masses but it is already running on 8.8% of enterprise PCs worldwide. Windows XP only had a 6.6% adoption rate 23 months after its released.

According to ComputerWorld and as we are all aware Microsoft has discontinued support for Windows XP on everything except certain UMPC and NetBooks. There are many calls for Windows XP to be reinstated on normal desktops and notebooks.

Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Washington, said,

"The uptake of XP was slower than people remember today and many IT managers labeled XP a consumer-only upgrade.”

When Windows XP was released, Windows 2000 was the standard and users loved it. There was no compelling reason to upgrade to Windows XP. Windows XP was a disaster when it was first released, SP1 addressed a host of bug fixes and SP2 basically remade Windows XP into a new operating system which made it a success. Until SP2, Windows XP was pretty much unloved.

The same case may be true of Vista but it may never get a SP2 of its own. That’s because Windows 7 is due out sometime in late 2010 which Microsoft hopes will sweep Vista under the rug. The company can’t possibly make stability worse, can it?

We’ll see, Microsoft could do so much better if it tried but it has a lot of trouble holding on to talent and that may be part of their (and our) problems right there.