Caution holds up sales of W95

Corporate hesitancy about changing PC operating systems kept shipments of Windows 95 behind estimates last year. Market watcher IDC said that Microsoft licensed almost 10 per cent fewer copies than analysts had predicted.

?Both Windows 95 and NT grew dramatically, but many corporate users delayed migration to the newer operating systems and purchased new copies of Dos and Windows 3.x instead,? said Dan Kusnetzky, an IDC director and author of the new report, Client Operating Eenvironments in Review.

Kusnetzky added that other factors were confusing relative positioning of NT and Windows 95 and the cost of upgrades. But the Microsoft pro- duct still accounted for 63 per cent of PC operating systems shipped last year. Windows NT Workstation trebled its global shipments but shipped 32 per cent fewer licences than IDC had expected.

Both MS Dos and PC Dos continue to have market presence, said Kusnetzky, and their shipments decreased at a slower rate than those of Windows/ Dos. But OS/2 declined far more sharply than IDC had projected at the start of 1996, with its market share halved in the space of the year.

Other predictions for 1997 are that Apple?s acquisition of Next will not achieve what Apple needs to improve its position. IDC believes it must have a fully multitasking operating system that provides full compatibility with Mac OS as well as new technology leadership ? and does not think Next provides all this.