A new survey reveals that 84 per cent of IT pros don't have plans to upgrade to Windows 7 in the next year and that half of respondents are considering alternatives.

The survey, which was conducted by Dimension Research and commissioned by KACE, a systems management appliance company. The survey had 1,142 respondents and 99 per cent of them had a Windows installed at their companies.

We don't know who Dimension Research are, but clearly they didn't think through there questions very well.  Windows 7 is in beta at the moment, few companies would consider upgrading their operating systems until the operating system has bedded in a while.  The fact that 16 per cent are thinking of doing so in the next year is unusual.

It means that IT pros think it possible that they will upgrade their systems in just six months to make the leap. The rest of the statistics make Microsoft look good. Within two years, 59 per cent of IT pros plan to upgrade to Windows 7.