Software - Desktop OS

Last year, Windows 7 didn't even have sufficient votes to make it to the Users' Choice club. This year, the tables have turned, with the OS entering the club with a big bang and pushing all other contenders down. This year, Windows 7 enjoyed the highest current ownership, top of mind recall, and even the highest brand loyalty relative to other OS brands.

Brand loyalty however is still a concern for Windows 7. In the 100-499 segment, Windows 7 has a brand loyalty of 70%, with 14% of the current users likely to shift to Windows XP, 1% likely to move to Windows Vista and the remaining 10% unsure of which brand to shift to. Windows XP again has 70% loyal customers, and interestingly, 16% of remaining users likely to shift out to Windows 7, while another 8% were unsure. RedHat Linux enjoys 100% loyalty amongst its curent users.

In the 500 - 999 employee segment, Windows 7 enjoys the highest number of loyal users at 83% with 9% users unsure of which brand to shift to.

Windows XP's brand loyalty stood at 77%, out of which 10% were not sure which brand to shift out to while 6% were likely to shift to Windows 7 and another 6% to RedHat Linux. Windows Vista has a loyal customer base of 60%, and of the remaining users, 10% were likely to shift to Windows 7 and 10% were unsure which brand to shift out to.

In both employee segments, most existing owners of Windows 7 gave product reliability as their reason for having chosen their brand. And and it came as the same reason for choosing the brands for the future also.