A RECENT survey by IT research agency IDC shows that Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system (OS) platform has yet to entice Singapore businesses to go for an immediate upgrade of the OS on their computer networks.

Speaking to BizIT, IDC analyst Antony Lee said more than 80 per cent of Singaporean enterprises have no plans to migrate to Windows Vista platform at least for the next 12 months, according to the survey findings.

Only 5 per cent of the IT professionals interviewed in Singapore have said that they had planned a Vista migration, Mr Lee, who is IDC's Asia Pacific market analyst for software research, added.

The Singapore responses are in line with the overall survey findings for the Asia-Pacific, including Japan (APJ). IDC's Asia Pacific senior research manager, Letchmy Ganapathy, told BizIT that only 14 per cent of the respondents in APJ indicated they would migrate to Vista over the next 12 months for either testing purposes or for partial or total PC deployment.

'For those respondents (in APJ) who indicated that they had no plans to migrate to Vista, 59 per cent stated that their current version of the Windows OS did everything they needed. In addition, 14 per cent of this respondent group highlighted the fact that they would like to upgrade to Vista, but were concerned about the cost,' she noted. Ms Ganapathy works for IDC's Asia-Pacific central research group.

Mr Lee said that in Singapore, among those who have no plans for Vista, close to half of the respondents said their current Windows OS version satisfies all their needs.

'The next 20 per cent are still reviewing the decision on whether to migrate or not. About 15 per cent of the respondents wanted to migrate but concerns about migration costs and complexity held them back,' Mr Lee said.

He added: 'Judging from the survey results, we see that large-scale migration projects to Vista in corporates would be relatively slow, given the migration concerns and satisfaction of the current Windows version.'

According to Reuben Tan, IDC's Asia-Pacific research manager for personal systems research, despite the lukewarm corporate response to Vista, total PC procurement in the second half of the year in Singapore is expected to match that of the first half.

'This is a good sign despite the GST (goods and services tax) increasing 2 per cent in the third quarter, since PC sales in the first quarter of 2007 hit a record high,' Mr Tan said, adding that first quarter PC sales figures were an impressive 28 per cent higher than the corresponding first half of 2006.

Full-year 2007 PC sales are expected to rise 23 per cent over 2006, Mr Tan noted. 'This is mainly driven by a large increase in consumer notebook buying, but the commercial notebook as well as the desktop markets (both commercial and consumer) are also expected to grow in 2007 over 2006,' he added.

Ms Ganapathy said the survey revealed that the overall PC purchasing plans in the region would remain roughly the same level as last year. Around 60 per cent of respondents across APJ indicated that they would purchase desktops and/or notebook PCs in 2007, and the figure is nearly identical to last year's study.

'Of these PCs that APJ firms plan to purchase in 2007, less than half will serve as replacement PCs, with the remaining majority being new purchases,' Ms Ganapathy noted.

Looking at data centre plans of companies, the survey found that in APJ, 33 per cent of the respondents indicated that their major concern was to invest in better management and automation tools to reduce cost and improve efficiency. 28 per cent stated that they were focused on improving availability and uptime by buying more reliable servers, while 14 per cent of the respondents suggested that server virtualisation was their current priority.

In Singapore, 25 per cent of the respondents said that their major priority was to invest in better management and automation tools. Around 18 per cent felt that their priority was to improve availability and uptime by buying more reliable servers.

While 18 per cent felt server power management was a major concern, 15 per cent of the Singaporean respondents felt that improving server cooling was a major task.

Server virtualisation was the top priority for 16 per cent of the Singaporean respondents.

Ms Ganapathy added that in terms of overall IT business goals for 2007 in APJ, 23 per cent of the respondents identified 'reducing cost' as the key objectives for their organisations going forward, while 23 per cent chose expanding business in current or new geographical markets, and 21 per cent stated it should be improving customer service.

'Looking at their top IT infrastructure requirements for 2007, there were 29 per cent and 24 per cent of the respondents who identified reducing total IT cost and building a secure IT environment respectively as the key objectives for their organisations going forward,' she added.

Notably, 17 per cent of APJ respondents reported that 'faster deployment of applications' was a key requirement for 2007, Ms Ganapathy said.