High Windows 7 Satisfaction Spurs Corporate IT Spending
After just two months on the market, Windows 7 is accelerating the pace of corporate computer buying, market research firm ChangeWave said.
Thu, December 24, 2009
Computerworld — Windows 7, just two months on the market, is accelerating the pace of corporate computer buying, market research firm ChangeWave said.
[ For complete coverage on Microsoft's (MSFT) new Windows 7 operating system -- including hands-on reviews, video tutorials and advice on enterprise rollouts-- see CIO.com's Windows 7 Bible. ]
Part of the reason may be that 93% of the IT professionals polled said that their company is satisfied with the new operating system, a one percentage point increase over a similar survey in July.
The results of ChangeWave's November poll of more than 1,700 U.S. corporate IT buyers wasn't a total surprise. "Previous ChangeWave surveys found companies deferring their PC purchases in anticipation of Windows 7 ," said director of research Paul Carton and researcher Adam Golub in an entry to the ChangeWave blog Tuesday. "The latest results show the opposite now occurring."
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Nearly one in five respondents said that Windows 7 is making their firm quicken the pace of their normal computer upgrade cycle over the next six months. While only 3% said that Microsoft 's new operating system had caused "significant acceleration" of upgrade plans, 6% said it had had resulted in a "modest acceleration" and 10% said it had created a "slight acceleration."
About 10% of the corporate IT buyers polled said that their company had already bought PCs with Windows 7 installed.
Microsoft launched Windows 7 Oct. 22 , when the OS debuted in retail boxed copies and on new PCs. The successor to the problem-plagued Windows Vista has been available to Microsoft's volume license customers since August.
As ChangeWave said in July, Microsoft's timing of Windows 7 was "fortuitous" because U.S. corporate PC buying plans began to rebound before its release. The research firm's November poll showed that the rebound was strengthening, giving PC vendors -- and Microsoft, which makes most of its operating system income on the back of new PC sales -- reason for optimism.
According to ChangeWave's polling, 22% of the IT buyers said that their company plans to increase its spending during the first quarter of 2010, a four percentage point increase since a similar poll in August. Only 21% said that their firm would reduce IT spending, also a four-point change.
The last time more IT buyers said their company would be increasing spending than others predicted a spending decline was November 2007.
