Businesses Delaying Office 2010 Migration

Bad news for Microsoft after a new survey found that concerns around the complexity of migrating to Microsoft Office 2010 is delaying broad deployment until 2011.

In a global survey of 953 IT professionals conducted by market research firm Dimensional Research and sponsored by Dell’s Kace division, eighty-five percent of those polled said they plan to adopt Office 2010, and while enthusiasm for Office 2010 is high, almost 80 percent of IT professionals polled said they have significant concerns about the complexity of the migration.

Complex Deployment

Only 4 percent have fully deployed Office 2010, and only 18 percent plan to broadly deploy Office 2010 this year. The survey also revealed that IT teams feel the Office 2010 migration is a large, complex and daunting project that they are not ready to embrace. The leading causes of concern revealed by the survey include training for the new ribbon interface, compatibility with current applications and licensing.

“IT organisations of all sizes are looking to upgrade to Office 2010 eventually, but they want to be assured that the transition process occurs as smoothly as possible,” said Diane Hagglund, senior research analyst for Dimensional Research. “At this time, it seems that migration concerns are outweighing confidence of a speedy Office 2010 migration.”

Only 20 percent of survey respondents said they have deployed Office 2010 to some number of machines, and only 4 percent have rolled out Office 2010 fully; 18 percent plan to deploy broadly in 2010, 85 percent reported plans to upgrade to Office 2010 eventually and 78 percent reported concerns over upgrading to Office 2010. Six percent reported they are fully deployed on Windows 7, up from 1 percent in the January 2010 research, while 55 percent indicated they will upgrade their desktop and laptop computers when deploying Windows 7.

Complexity Concerns

“The results of our latest survey on new technology adoption reinforce what we are hearing from customers – that the complexity of supporting multiple versions of Microsoft Office and the concerns over business interruption during the migration process have caused IT organisations to delay deployment,” said Rob Meinhardt, president and co-founder of Dell Kace.

In September 2010, a database of IT professionals was emailed and invited to participate in a web survey on the topic of Office 2010. The report compares certain answers to the results of identical questions asked in a January 2010 survey. A total of 953 respondents completed the survey. Participants included hands-on IT professionals (45 percent), IT managers (28 percent), IT executives (25 percent) and others.

This is the fifth study of its kind first conducted since 2007 by Dimensional Research and Dell Kace to gather data about current plans and attitudes within midsize corporate IT organizations about Windows OS and Office 2010 adoption. The study found interest in Windows 7 continues to grow, as 38 percent have begun to roll out Windows 7, more than double (15 percent) those who reported doing so during similar research in January.