Intel Skips VIsta

Intel, the giant chip maker and longtime partner of Microsoft, has decided against upgrading the computers of its own 80,000 employees to Microsoft’s Vista operating system, a person with direct knowledge of the company’s plans said.

The person, who has been briefed on the situation but requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of Intel’s relationship with Microsoft, said the company made its decision after a lengthy analysis by its internal technology staff of the costs and potential benefits of moving to Windows Vista, which has drawn fire from many customers as a buggy, bloated program that requires costly hardware upgrades to run smoothly.

“This isn’t a matter of dissing Microsoft, but Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista,” the person said.

And that's despite the fact that it's been nearly seven years since XP debuted. It's not a good thing, if your customers are electing to stick with 7-year-old technology. (In fairness, XP did get a fairly big update with Windows XP Service Pack 2, but even that is four years old at this point.)

It’s unquestionably true that large businesses have resisted Vista. That’s not surprising, given the problems in the initial release and the relentlessly negative press coverage. But an equally important reason for the continued sluggishness in Vista uptake rates is the economy, which has slowed to a crawl. In trying economic times, one way for big corporations like Intel to save money is to stretch the useful life of hardware and software investments. Intel’s decision makers no doubt have a pretty good idea what’s in Windows 7 and when it’s likely to be released. Their decision to skip Vista tells me that the next version of Windows is further along than most outsiders think.