Perhaps it was just my low expectations but I didn't ever really see Vista taking off quite as explosively as Microsoft and even some industry analysts seemed to think that it would. Nonetheless, impressive sales numbers were quoted and many organizations swore allegiance as it was released and it seemed like it might sweep the market much faster than I would have predicted.

According to Infoworld, however, I have been at least partially redeemed... Vista adoption is slowing in the enterprise, for all the predictable reasons: instability, incompatibility, lack of clear business value for the price.

I don't say this to hash on Microsoft, but rather the management in those organizations which signed off on the massive upgrade plans right out of the gate. What were you thinking? Haven't you learned yet to build all those caveats into your software deployment plans? Microsoft, whatever their other failings, is at least predictable... they release a new product, especially a major one with a checkered development history such as Vista, it's going to take them some time to polish it up to meet the marketing hype. And even the hype never promised some of the efficiencies and advantages that would really be necessary to make an upgrade off of Windows XP cost-effective.

I continue to hope that this sort of article will persuade CIOs and other managers to sit down and crunch the numbers before piling on the bandwagon.