(IRVINE, Calif.) With widespread Vista adoption still at least a year off, a handful of enterprises are beginning to take a closer look at using Linux on the desktop, according to preliminary results from Computer Economics’ annual IT staffing and spending survey.
The poll of 160 IT organizations of various sizes found that 16% were researching or piloting desktop Linux operating systems.
“While that lags pretty far behind the 39% giving Vista a closer look, it does indicate to us that Linux is gaining some attention,” said John Longwell, director of research for Computer Economics, an Irvine-based IT research firm. “But we still don’t see it posing a viable threat to Microsoft. The longer the Vista upgrade cycle is delayed, however, the longer the door is left open for alternatives.”
The survey found that the percentage of companies that have adopted or are planning to adopt Vista over the next 12 months is still quite small–only about 6%. Even more indicative that a Vista upgrade cycle is still at least a year off is that 55% of the organizations reported that they had no activity underway in regards to Vista.
“We found that more organizations were researching Vista last year than this year,” Longwell said. “Many took a close look and found no compelling reason to make the transition just yet.”
The full report, Microsoft Vista Migration Still Slow in 2008, provides an analysis of Vista and Linux adoption plans and an assessment of Vista Service Pack 1.