A study of some 1,285,500 computers in almost one thousand companies across 7 European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, England, Italy) found that Windows PCs crashed around 8% per session. In other words, in European businesses, Windows PCs crash almost one out of every 12 times they are turned on.
The study was undertaken by Acadys and Microcost, two European firms, and its purpose was to measure how computers are being used in businesses, and to break down costs associated with using them. The information comes to us via an article in French magazine called Journal Du Net, which was found by Slashdot readers, and relayed to us by an anonymous Observer.
With the help of Alta Vista’s Babelfish Translation, as well as our own weak French skills, we offer the following translation fro the article:
The data also made it possible to measure the reliability of Mircosoft’s operating systems. According to the survery, the average failure rate requiring a system reboot was measured around 8% per session. This figure fluctuates largely according to the version of Windows. Indeed, Windows 2000 has a failure rate of 4% and NT4 of 3%, whereas Windows XP is closer to 12%.
There is much more information on the way computers are being used in Euro businesses in the full article at the Journal Du Net. Among other things, the article says that the study recommends better licensing management due to many computers having unneeded copies of Office and other software, and that firms consider more open source operating systems and software.
The Mac Observer Spin:
An 8% crash rate is fairly staggering, especially considering that there are dedicated IT departments working to keep these machines in working order. It’s remarkable that anyone could consider that sort of failure rate as acceptable, but the reality is that most people do.