Software : Desktop OS

Desktop OS market being dominated by Windows, and Windows 7 being the latest

OS from MS, let's see how well has it fared this year for the coveted award. XP

has emerged as the winner, this time again. Amongst our respondents, XP enjoyed

the highest current ownership, highest top of mind recall, and even the highest

loyalty relative to other OS brands. Windows Vista was at the second position in

top of mind recall amongst our survey respondents. Whereas, though on a relative

scale, it was Windows 7 that enjoyed a 100% of other brand owners shifting on to

it. For open source advocates, it would be a disappointment as none of the Linux

variants garnered sufficient votes amongst our respondents for us to pass any

judgment.

Users' Choice Club 2010

The advent of Windows 7 strikes out RedHat Linux off the elite club this time.

Future Brand Preference Reasons

Brand & reliability of product are the two reasons why current users have chosen Win XP.

Analysis of current and future brand preference gives us insight that brand

name and reliability of the product are two main reasons why current users have

chosen Windows XP and Vista as their current desktop OS. Moving towards industry

verticals that we covered in our survey this time, it was Windows XP that led

the way across all the industries. Whereas, the new entrant Windows 7 has

already way ahead of Vista in industries like discrete manufacturing, IT/ITeS,

healthcare, process manufacturing and services.

Brand Loyalty 2010 vs 2009

Within first year of its release Win 7 has been able to make such a user perception that it has 100% brand loyalty.

Of the brands that made it to User's Choice club 2010, when we asked the

participants about brand loyalty for their current brand we found Windows 7

enjoys the highest brand loyalty amongst its existing owners at 100%. This was

followed by Windows XP with 75% brand loyalty. 21% of respondents were not sure

which OS to shift to and 4% have already decided to make a switch towards

Windows 7. Meanwhile for Vista, the brand loyalty was 53%, with 26% respondents

deciding to move to Windows 7 and remaining 21% being unsure. Whatever be the

case here, it's Microsoft who gains because it owns all three of these brands!