Leader: Microsoft's got a tough sell for Vista

Microsoft must sometimes feel like it can never win. First it gets hammered over the endless delays to its forthcoming operating system 'Longhorn' - now known by its product name Windows Vista - and yet now that it's almost ready for release, few businesses appear to actually want it.

Not one of silicon.com's CIO Jury user panel said they are planning to upgrade to Vista when the enterprise edition is released early next year - with most saying that they're perfectly happy, thank you very much, with Windows XP.

That's perhaps not all that surprising, with many choosing to wait until all the early bugs and glitches have been ironed out by the first and second service pack updates.

The lack of any urgency among businesses to upgrade to Vista also means open source alternatives will have another 18 months to two years to mature and get their foot in the door.

This is the strategy advised by Gartner, which last week warned against a 'big bang' upgrade to Vista and said businesses shouldn't think of migrating before the middle of 2008, by which time the platform should be mature and reliable enough for enterprises.

Cost is also an issue. Vista will require higher-spec machines to take advantage of all its features - and this comes at a price. For this reason many businesses will only migrate to Vista when its time to upgrade and refresh their hardware estate.

Perhaps more worrying for Microsoft is the observation by one of silicon.com's CIO Jurors Rob Neil, head of ICT and customer service at Ashford Borough Council, who said: "As more of our line of business apps move towards being web or client-server based, the need for full-featured desktop operating systems reduces."

The lack of any urgency among businesses to upgrade to Vista also means open source alternatives will have another 18 months to two years to mature and get their foot in the door.

Windows Vista may well be Microsoft's most secure, reliable and feature-packed operating system release yet but the Redmond giant is going to have its work cut out selling the benefits to enterprise users.