Mary Jo posted details on the new Harris poll about Vista awareness. Of 2,223 people asked, 1,934 (87%) were aware that Vista exists, which is a huge win for Microsoft. But it stops there: only 12% said they would definitely upgrade, down 8% from December.
I have a couple problems with this poll, however, which would lead me to question the conclusions that you'd be able to draw from it. For one thing, half as many people were asked in December as were asked in March. I'm not sure what that does for the statistics... maybe nothing. But it's not apples-to-apples.
The second problem I think is far more fundamental. I don't know that you can make an accurate comparison between the two sets of numbers on awareness and upgrade potential, because they didn't ask the same people 3 months later about whether or not they would upgrade. THAT would show a more accurate picture, IMO, because you would be able to draw more accurate conclusions about the effect of Vista's PR on the buying public.
Thirdly, I think the poll is flawed because it didn't break down the different responses based on the operating system the respondent was already using. Did 97% of Windows 98 users say they were going to upgrade? It also doesn't break down the percentages of operating systems use in December 2006. You might have been able to draw better conclusions from those changes too: For example, it was still possible to buy computers with XP in December. How many older OS users decided not to wait for Vista? How many had the option to Express Upgrade?
Finally, it include any statistics on the 3% of people who had already upgraded to Vista, including what drove them to upgrade, how they did it, what OS they were running before, etc. 3% of the internet-using population may not sound like a big deal to you... but 60 days after launch, that number is pretty significant.
All in all, I think the poll is interesting, but far too incomplete to draw a whole lot of accurate conclusions from. And that's surprising from an institution whose sole purpose in life is to gather complete data to draw conclusions from.