Microsoft is struggling to get users to switch to Vista and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), with just 6.3 per cent of businesses using the operating system at the end of 2007.
According to a study of over 50,000 corporate users by
Forrester Research, 70 percent of those surveyed were still using the older Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) at the end of last year.
Businesses seem reluctant to change, partly because "a lot of critical enterprise applications are still not compatible with IE7", Reedwan Iqbal, a researcher with Forrester Research, explained to Computerworld.com.
One reason for the slow uptake of Vista 2008 may be that companies planning to upgrade are waiting for the release of Windows 7, scheduled for the second half of 2009.
Similarly, with a beta of Internet Explorer 8 now available, enterprises which have not yet switched from IE6 to IE7 may not bother.
In contrast, the number of Firefox users doubled during 2007 to 18 per cent, whereas overall users on all versions of IE fell by 10 per cent.
Mr Iqbal commented: "IE7 was a bit of a botched job by Microsoft. It was trying to catch up to what [Microsoft] saw Mozilla doing, but they rushed things."
