XP, the latest desktop operating system from Microsoft, boasts a
simplified look and feel. But enterprises are more likely to be
tempted by its improved compatibility and links into Microsoft's
.Net strategy.
Windows XP succeeds Windows 2000 Professional as the latest desktop
operating system in the Windows 2000 family. With its radically
restyled look and feel, XP certainly looks very different from its
predecessor. But systems integrators and their enterprise clients
will be asking hard questions about how different it really is -
and whether the changes are worth paying for.
XP is available in three editions: XP Professional for enterprises;
XP 64-bit edition for high-performance workstations; and XP Home
Edition, which lacks the remote support and extra security of the
enterprise version. All three are completely compatible with the
Windows 2000 code base.
Compatible clients
According to Neil Laver, Microsoft
UK product market manager for Windows XP, the product's improved
applications' compatibility is an important reason why systems
integrators and their clients will be interested in it.
"A lot of enterprise clients couldn't move to Windows 2000 because
of compatibility issues," he says. "XP represents a massive
improvement in terms of compatibility. Eighty percent of
applications that wouldn't run on 2000 will run on XP out of the
box, and most of the other 20% will run in compatibility mode. The
few that won't will probably work if an IT professional uses the
resource kit available with Windows XP to make minor changes,"
Laver adds. XP's increased reliability and support for mobile
workers will also, Laver believes, be key selling points.
In the real world, companies often upgrade for fairly mundane
reasons, and many integrators are expecting to see their clients
moving to XP simply because it's time for a change. "I don't think
there's enough new features in XP to justify upgrading from 2000;
it comes down to a timing issue," says Martin Doxsey, principal
consultant at ICL. "It's around three years after many corporates
did their Year 2000 upgrades, and they're getting ready to update
their desktop hardware. Rather than adopting Windows 2000 on the
desktop immediately, some companies will have been waiting for the
initial bugs to be ironed out in Version 2."
The new look
A new simplified look and feel is the most
obvious change in XP. For enterprise customers, integrators believe
that this will be either a non-issue or a negative issue, and more
often than not the XP interface will be switched off. "The
different look is for the consumer market," says Doxsey.
"In the corporate market, customers don't want to have to retrain
and have their helpdesk flooded with calls from all the people who
can't find buttons any more. My guess is most corporates that
implement XP will make it look just like Windows 2000."
Desktop operating systems have major implications for cost of
ownership, which is a perennial issue for corporates. George Thaw
of systems integrator Avanade, a joint venture between Microsoft
and Accenture, sees the increased reliability and improved desktop
applications compatibility issues as central to cutting cost of
ownership.
"It will make things run more smoothly, and cut down costs in terms
of testing," he says. "Having introduced large clients to Windows
2000, I believe XP will significantly reduce costs."
But like most system integrators, he's more interested in the
implications for integrating the desktop with back-end systems. As
with Windows 2000 Professional, XP's close compatibility with
Windows 2000 servers will make a difference in terms of support
costs. "Both Windows 2000 server and Windows XP are running on one
kernel, so you don't need multiple sets of knowledge to support
them," says Thaw.
Behind the scenes
Paul Scott, Customer Relationship
Management business consultant at services company Axon, believes
that desktop operating systems questions are a marginal issue for
most large enterprises, where the real challenges still centre on
the integration of core systems and legacy data. Axon's enterprise
clients, which include BOC, BP, Carlsberg Tetley and Xerox, are
more interested in issues such as how to get access to enterprise
data efficiently, then present the results on the desktop in a form
users want.
"Platforms like SAP, Peoplesoft and Oracle have the muscle and are
increasingly getting better at using front end functionality in
packages like Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes, but there is still
a long way to go," Scott maintains. "However, XP provides a new way
of tackling some of the workgroup and inter-enterprise integration
issues."
David Wright, managing consultant at PA Consulting, agrees that for
enterprise customers "the interesting issues around Windows 2000
family are at the back office, where all the money and complexity
is, and that's where you have to get your decision-making right".
As for XP on the desktop, he doesn't see much point in wasting time
soul-searching: "You refresh your PCs fairly regularly anyway, so
just do it - just go for XP now. What are the alternatives?"
Signing up to .Net
One of the few services
professionals who see XP as significant for the enterprise is Andy
Mulholland, chief technology officer at CAP Gemini Ernst &
Young. "XP doesn't have many features that make much difference to
the average user, but at the strategy level it does have quite a
lot of interest," he says. "It deals with the relationships between
the user, the desktop and different types of services, and has
wider links into Microsoft's .Net initiative."
Companies offering online services, he believes, should be thinking
now about how to benefit from the fact that their customers have
new features such as a built-in Messenger client and built-in user
authentication. "XP is designed to make you a client to a service
world; whether someone is at home or in business, their ability to
act as client to services is now uniform," he says.
On the mobile front, Windows XP simplifies wireless networking
through support for the 802.11 standard, making it seamless for
mobile workers to connect to corporate networks through secure
wireless connections without needing to reconfigure their machines.
Among many other advanced features, the Network Setup Wizard
enables users to easily set up networks and create bridges.