New report paints an even bleaker picture for Vista adoption.

Not that the news for Vista has been good since day one, but this report paints a picture that’s even worse than most expected. Time for Redmond to wake up and do a 180 before it’s too late.

Wow, what can you say but WOW. A few points a lot of of these surveys overlook (this one is probably more dead on than most) are:

1. Just because a Vista license is sold, doesn’t mean it’s actually deployed. I have several clients that when a new PC comes in with Vista on it, SOP is to image it to the corporate XP Pro load. Some are still on Win 2000 Pro with no intentions of upgrading to either XP or Vista. I can’t count the number of Vista to XP downgrades I’ve done for clients, friends, and family members, but it’s way into the 3 digit range now.

2. The comments that Vista’s growth (what little there is) comes at Win 2000’s expense I tend to be a bit skeptical of what’s really happening there too. If nothing else, how many of those are probably coming back to XP (or W2K) before long?

So what is Microsoft to do? Here are my suggestions for Redmond:

1.  Forget Vista and move on. Take XP and make it into XP R2.

2.   In XP R2, don’t make user interface changes for the sake of change. With very few exceptions it’s fine, leave it the heck alone. Quit trying to copy OS X (and doing a horrid job at that).

3.  In XP R2 focus on stripping out code bloat. Make it a lean mean OS that can run even better than XP. Focus on speed, security, and stability. You might even be surprised at how much the focus on lean and mean helps in the other two areas!

4.  Focus on security without creating systems that are just going to badger users to death till they turn it off or get so used to it they don’t even read the warning messages. Apple can do it with minimal fuss!

5.  Tell Hollywood to go take a leap. Yeap, that’s going to set well with some of my clients, grin. The DRM infestation that is Vista is a good portion of it’s problem. Stop bending to Hollywood/Intel, they either want their content, or hardware in Intel’s case, to be used by your customer base or not. The leverage is in your hands, not the other way around. The hardcore users and even a good chunk of power users are going to work around any protection anyone comes up with or use another non-crippled OS to get what they want.

6.  Listen to your users over Hollywood and Intel. This would do you wonders on so many levels.

7.  No more than two versions of a particular version of Windows. If two are even needed on the desktop? Learn from Apple. Offer a desktop and server version, simple enough.

8.  Learn from Apple and give folks a productive desktop with minimal fuss. Create operating systems that make people happy to go pluck down 3-digits in $$$ to get it. Don’t force folks into an upgrade cycle that only disappoints. Did you note how Apple’s customers flocked to Leapard (OS X 10.5) in record masses? Did you note how they’re glad to pluck down $129 for a new OS?

9.  Like Apple, make an OS that when you upgrade from 10.4 on a 2-3 year old laptop to 10.5 it actually runs smoother and more responsive! Try that with Vista on a 3 year old laptop!

10.  Enough with the endless click, install, click, install, click, install mess that using the web site based update tools for the OS and Office has become. Security updates should be free and EASILY accessible to all users without any validation headaches (of which all can be worked around anyways). Put officeupdate.microsoft.com back the way it was, the current mess is just insane. Enough with the activation mess of Windows, geez.

11.  Get your 64 bit / 32 bit act together.  Sun and Apple have proven it can be done and done right without a ton of different versions of this and that.

12.  Redmond, it’s really up to you, but if you are not the only option out there anymore. Both Linux and OS X are making inroads. I see some Linux, but I’ve seen a boatload more OS X and Mac’s in general over the last year or so. Stop being so damn annoying and controlling. If you next version of Windows isn’t a 180 degree turnaround from Vista…guess what’s going to continue to happen, but at an even faster rate!

People are tired of being held hostage by their computer’s OS. They want it cheap, they want it fast, they want it non-crippled, and they’re going to get it, from you or someone else! Linux is getting there fast. OS X is even closer than Linux (for now) for the average user and increasingly so for the corporate world. I haven’t seen too many Linux desktops in my corporate clients (outside of the IT dept geeks), but I’m seen OS X EVERYWHERE including a lot of die hard Windows shops. Are Linux or OS X perfect, lord no, but they are rapidly improving while Windows seems to be going backwards. Many folks are starting to realize that their computing world doesn’t have to have Windows in it

I can tell you for fact that once there’s a non-Microsoft, solid, feature rich, replacement for Outlook on OS X, corporate adoption of OS X will skyrocket and you’ll be in a world of hurt before you know it. This and the OpenOffice folks getting their act together on OS X would be a death blow to your market share in 1-2 years.

Redmond the choice (and your future) is in your hands. Screw the next Windows version up and you’re in even more trouble…maybe even unrecoverable trouble.

Rant concluded….