Windows Vista is either the software blast heard round the computing world--Microsoft's marketing line is "The WOW starts now"--or a dud, depending on who's talking. Six months into Vista's release to business customers, the reality lies in between those extremes.

Boyd's Price wonders: What's the benefit? Photo by Jeffery Newbury

Microsoft's new operating system is in use at a quarter of companies surveyed by InformationWeek Research. That's not a bad start, but you have to read the fine print to get the full, and less impressive, picture. Among those early adopters, 91% have installed Vista on 10% or fewer of their PCs. Most of the deployment work is still ahead even for them.

The survey, completed on the Web by 612 business technology professionals in March and April, helps explain the contradictory information circulating about Vista's uptake. The U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and NASA, for example, are all holding off on Vista upgrades, at least temporarily, and countless businesses have made similar decisions. On the other hand, when Microsoft announced record profit for its fiscal quarter ended March 31, the company attributed the blow-out performance to "robust demand" for Windows Vista and its Office 2007 line.

It's the old half-empty, half-full phenomenon, and Microsoft, understandably, is optimistic in its assessment. "Some of the leading indicators lead me to believe that people are teeing up to make this the fastest deployed business OS we've seen," says Shanen Boettcher, general manager of Windows client product management. Microsoft reported $1.67 billion in deferred Vista licensing revenue in the March quarter. That means Vista license fees were paid to Microsoft, but it doesn't mean that all of those Vista copies got loaded onto PCs or that users were thrilled if they did get them. Some companies, the Chicago Tribune among them, replace Vista with Windows XP on new PCs. For a variety of reasons, they're not yet ready for Vista.

One key finding of our survey is that Vista is falling short of expectations among a surprisingly high percentage (46%) of business technology pros. Only 19% say it's meeting expectations, while an oddball 1% grade Vista as "exceeding expectations." For a third of survey takers, it's simply too soon to judge.

Microsoft responds that there's more to Vista than many customers realize, while security has been strong and incompatibilities few. "It's an education process," says Boettcher. "We're very focused on improving the experience for customers."

CR Software, a developer of debt-recovery software, has yet to be wowed by Vista. The company tested its applications on Vista and found that two of them--Firstwave Connect-Care, a CRM product, and iCore Networks' VoIP softphone--didn't work. In addition, CR Software determined that many of its PCs would have to be upgraded or replaced for Vista to run properly. "So our strategy is to ignore Vista for a while," says VP of IT Bob Zwick. "If it ain't broke ..."

There's always a lag between Microsoft's release of a new operating system and widespread business adoption. Windows XP was no exception. "Corporations, for good reason, are notoriously slow to adopt," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said last month in a meeting with user-group representatives and other IT community leaders. Ballmer said business use of Vista is at about the same pace as earlier Windows upgrades and in line with Microsoft's expectations.

The Chicago Tribune is testing Vista on six machines and evaluating how much tweaking needs to be done to get its custom publishing apps to work with Vista. Tushar Patel, the publisher's client systems manager, says that it typically takes about three years from the time Microsoft releases a new operating system for the Tribune to complete the upgrade.