Athough the figures below by Forrester are alltogether impressive I dare to say that ‘results in the past are no guarantee for the future’. Windows is the foundation of more different formfactors today, just think about the Media Center. So Windows XP’s adaption history is only part of the story.
In the US consumer market, the best predictor of Windows Vista uptake is Windows XP’s adoption history. Forrester’s historical tracking of the installed base of computers — since 1998 — gives us a view into how Windows Vista will progress. Of course, creative marketing can accelerate the pace of adoption in the near term, but over the product’s lifetime, consumers’ entrenched behavior will determine Vista’s growth, from 12 million households in 2007 to 73 million households by 2011.
Peter, do you think the system requirements for Vista will be a significant contributing factor to adoption? I’m not asking you in an official capacity, I’m just wondering what your personal opinion is.
Charles,
Upgrading older PC’s (let’s say older than 4/5 years may be an issue. I do think looking at PC prices of the Vista capable PC’s today are very reasonable and affordable, so people will be buying a new PC maybe easier / faster than 5 years ago.
The minimum specs are quite reasonable also :
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/capable.mspx . This means a lot of people will be able to upgrade.
Bottem line is I think more people will be buying a new PC with Vista rather than upgrade at the end of the day. I also think the uptake will be faster than WIndows XP, simply because more people have a PC today and also more ‘hobbies’ like photography, music, etc in which the PC is an important factor.