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Despite Mac Gains, Windows Still Rules Enterprise Computing

Windows still nearly monopolized enterprise desktops in 2007, even though it lost some market share at the expense of Apple, according to a report by Forrester Research. Enterprise Windows market share dropped nearly 4%, but 95% of business users run Windows. And Apple market share tripled, but it's still just 4.2%, limited to enthusiasts and small workgroups.

The reason Windows still rules: IT departments like to standardize, according to the report, written up on the blog Microsoft Watch.

The news isn't good for Vista: Adoption increased a little more than five percentage points to end at 6.3%. Most of those new Vista installations probably came from Windows 2000, which dropped six percentage points. Enterprises aren't upgrading Windows XP to Vista.

Microsoft is increasingly worrying about Apple in the consumer space. In fact, Microsoft is increasingly worrying about the consumer space, in general, which isn’t too surprising since the Redmondians already have sewn up the enterprise and needs new markets to conquer in order to keep its growth rates up.

But in the enterprise, Apple isn’t tops on Microsoft’s list of companies to watch. IBM is. And given that the lion’s share of Microsoft’s revenues still comes from enterprise, not consumer, sales, I’d argue that Microsoft shouldn’t let itself be distracted by all the noise around Apple’s consumer market-share gains.

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