Microsoft’s promise of productivity gains and lower
management costs with Windows Vista is unlikely to prompt many
firms to upgrade any sooner than they would under their existing
lifecycle renewal programmes, according to blue chip user group the
Corporate IT Forum.
The desktop operating system, which is due to be launched to
business users on 30 November, is being touted as Microsoft’s most
significant product release since Windows 95 was introduced 11
years ago. Micro¬soft has said Vista will allow IT departments to
reduce desktop management costs by as much as 63% and improve IT
security, particularly for mobile users.
But IT directors within the Corporate IT Forum are cautious
about whether the benefits of Vista are compelling enough to
justify an early upgrade ahead of their desktop renewal
timetables.
Ollie Ross, research manager at the Corporate IT Forum, said the
group expected that any major deployment of Vista would only be
undertaken in the course of planned IT lifecycle renewal, or in
response to business change, such as a merger or acquisition.
Ross said many organisations were only now migrating fully to
the last major Windows release, XP.
“As far as most of those with large PC estates are concerned,
Vista needs to be established, stable and probably have at least
the first service pack available and deployable before large
organisations will consider embarking upon the task of migration,”
she said.
Forrester Research vice-president Simon Yates said, “Many firms
would prefer to stick with Windows XP as a single, stable version
of Windows that meets most of their end-user application
needs.”
Paul Stoddard, Windows client manager at Microsoft, said,
“Windows Vista is a significantly new operating system. We believe
it is the ideal choice for organisations seeking to operate
competitively and enable their workforce to be more
productive.”
Although Microsoft is touting lower cost of ownership as one of
Vista’s big improvements over Windows XP, Michael Silver, research
vice-president at Gartner, warned that 63% was probably a top-end
figure. He said a locked and well-managed XP desktop could reduce
IT operations costs by about 35%.
More on evaluating Vista:
www.computerweekly.com/219857
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