In BizJournals, Brad Patten warns that Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP on June 30. He states that Microsoft is about to put many businesses between a rock and hard place, and I agree. "…There is no compelling reason to upgrade. Vista isn’t more stable, faster or easier to use."

Here is another article on CNN about how users are resisting the forced upgrade: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/14/microsoft.xp.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

XP has been stable and reliable. Vista looks cute/fancy, but it does not provide enough new features to make a change from XP worthwhile.  In my opinion, Vista is an "innovation" that is driven only by the desire to appear innovative–not out of any solution to a compelling business need. As a business person, it is difficult for me to justify the expense and effort involved in upgrading–except that Microsoft is forcing our hand.

As I discussed in this post about innovation among CIOs throughout the world, the "next new thing" is not always a good business decision. The reluctance of businesses to embrace Vista further validates this observation.

While US companies resist the change from XP to Vista, companies in rapidly developing areas, such as China, will buy new PCs that are only available with the Vista operating system. If you follow the same logic as Accenture did in its recent study, this indicates that Chinese are more innovative than we are. But that logic is faulty. When we meet the needs of our customer in the most efficient and cost-effective ways possible and we offer something worth investing in right now, that is true innovation.