Three-quarters of companies are still wedded to Windows XP as their desktop operating system, nearly a decade after the operating system was released.

 

Windows XP continues to dominate the desktop, with 75 per cent of businesses using it as their operating system, six per cent using Windows 7, and six per cent using Windows Vista. Five per cent of respondents said they used Macs and one per cent said their OS was older than XP.

 

The survey by IT services company Plan-Net also showed the vast majority of businesses (87 per cent) were using Exchange 2003 or earlier. Seven per cent are using Exchange 2007 and just four per cent have moved to Exchange 2010.

 

The main reason businesses gave for not upgrading to Windows 7 and Exchange 2003 was the budget reduction as a result of the recession.

 

The findings also showed that one in three companies were happy with existing systems, and saw no reason to upgrade. But 16 per cent of businesses were wary of upgrading because of experience with previous versions and were waiting for the first Windows 7 service pack, due next year.