The XP Alternative for Vista PCs ZDNet: "While Microsoft is still pushing Vista hard, the company is quietly allowing PC makers to offer a "downgrade" option to buyers that get machines with the new operating system but want to switch to Windows XP. The program applies only to Windows Vista Business and Ultimate versions, and it is up to PC makers to decide how, if at all, they want to make XP available. Fujitsu has been among the most aggressive, starting last month to include an XP disc in the box with its laptops and tablets."

I don't think that this necessarily reflects a collective vote against Windows Vista. If anything, this is collective vote for Windows XP. Once the FUD surrounding Windows XP died off it became the de facto standard on most business desktops.

Will Windows Vista follow suit? Probably. Will it take longer? Yes. The hardware requirements for Vista are significantly greater than XP. Moving from Windows 2000 to Windows XP was not such a great leap. In many cases, when upgrading from 2000 to XP, the single hardware requirement was more RAM. When upgrading to Vista, your RAM, your CPU and your video card are all extremely important. In fact, the requirements in these three areas can be surprising 'showstoppers' for your existing hardware, necessitating the purchase of a new PC.

I believe that the expense of new hardware, coupled with the current lack of application support for Vista will ensure a slow adoption by many businesses.

UPDATE: You can read some Vista FUD here. Note the "Mac and Linux work" conclusion in the article. One could also add that DOS 3.2 and UNIX work. Dismissing Vista in this way doesn't impress me.