New survey finds smaller businesses accelerating Windows 7 adoption plans 20 January, 2010 By Mark Cox

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The survey was fielded during the first two weeks of October and the last two weeks of November 2009 by the Spiceworks Voice of ITTM market research program. Respondents were among the 850,000 SMB IT professionals from around the world who use Spiceworks to manage their computer networks.

The survey found a 20 percent increase in the number of SMBs planning to speed up their adoption rates of Windows 7 following the official launch. Plans to start upgrades "immediately" and "in the next 90 days" increased by 10 percent respectively post-launch.

IT pros at the smallest firms (<20 employees) are most aggressive in their upgrade plans. Over 40 percent planned to start upgrading in the first 90 days post-launch. This is more than double the rate of organizations with more than 20 employees, and it differs from past behavior among this market segment, which is historically slower to adopt new operating systems.

Speed as a reason for upgrading jumped 11 percent post-launch. Among those moving faster with their Windows 7 adoption plans post-launch, the top three reasons for doing so were speed (73 percent), user interface (69 percent) and switch from their current OS (57 percent).

Windows 7 upgrade plans differed between various regions of the world. Nearly 10 percent more IT professionals at SMBs in the North America (NA) and Asia/Pacific (APAC) regions are upgrading at a faster rate than their counterparts in the Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and Latin America/South America (LA/SA) regions.

In the next 12 months, the majority of Windows 7 installations will be on existing machines. 45 percent of Windows 7 installations will be on new machines, while 55 percent will be on existing machines.

"Smaller organizations around the world seem more confident about upgrading to Windows 7 post-launch," said Jay Hallberg, co-founder and vice president of Marketing for Spiceworks. "More SMBs plan to upgrade, and a larger number of them are speeding up their upgrade plans. This could be a very positive sign for Windows 7 adoption within the SMB market segment, which accounts for the majority of business computers in the world."

The survey of IT professionals had 1,530 respondents from 85 different countries in organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees. The average annual technology budget of survey respondents was $108,000.