VMware VP of Marketing Erik Frieberg reports on the results of a survey they commissioned of 376 IT professionals:

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the results is that Windows is no longer the platform of choice in the enterprise with users overwhelmingly preferring Macs. User preference is the top reason given by IT administrators as to why their organization supports Macs with 73 percent of IT administrators identifying it as the main driver.

It’s not a huge sample and while 66 percent of the businesses surveyed said they already use Macs, they certainly don’t support them across departments. Still, I don’t doubt things are changing. You know, now that I’ve left corporate IT. Typical, really.

(Via Glenn Fleishman)

New York Times reopens Apple investigation.

Mary Jo Foley:

Windows “Threshold,” the next major version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system due to hit around the spring of 2015, is coming into focus.

And not too surprisingly, one of the Microsoft Operating Systems Group’s main goals in designing and developing the coming operating system (OS) release — which may or may not ultimately be branded as “Windows 9” — is to try to make it more palatable to hold-out Windows 7 users.

I know we’ve been over this again and again, but in addition to the conceptual flaw of trying to make one operating system for desktop and mobile, there’s a marketing problem as well. Apple was able to make iOS palatable to its existing customers (as well as others) by detaching it from OS X. If Apple had also forced its desktop operating system clients to a Springboard UI, everyone would still be on Tiger.

You can certainly give Microsoft credit for trying something new, but it didn’t work. And they’re still trying to unravel it.