`XP hurting Vista badly

NEW DELHI: Microsoft may have given farewell to Windows XP, but seems users are still in no mood to bid goodbye to one of the most popular operating systems.

According to a recent Forrester survey, less than 10 percent of the 2,300 companies surveyed use Vista. Forrester says 87.1 percent of companies surveyed continue to use Windows XP.

Mendel told a leading tech magazine that it would be wise by Microsoft to "consider following the lead of Microsoft's important partner Intel and re-evaluating the case of Vista."

The report negates Redmond giants claim that over 180 million copies of Vista have been sold. Also, what may be more disturbing for Microsoft is that many of the pre-loaded Vista machines are being downgraded to XP in compliance with corporate licensing plans.

The report also had a bit of good news for Microsoft. It found Vista usage among businesses going up by more than 40 percent since January and that the rate of adoption of Vista remains twice that of Mac OS X.

The Forrester report also shows the growing popularity of Firefox browser. It notes that almost 20 percent of the enterprise users are using Firefox browser and urges developers to make sure that their applications work with Firefox.
Source : infotech.indiatimes.com dt. 25 7 2008