Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are in no rush to adopt
Microsoft's
Vista operating system. Many will, but for
most, a new operating system availability isn't reason enough to
rush out and deploy it.
A survey of SMBs by
Access Markets International Partners Inc.
(AMI) revealed that 7% of small businesses and 17% of midsized
businesses are interested in adopting Vista by the end of 2007. AMI
estimates that this represents 447,000 companies.
 | | | | | I don't see any advantage to
adopting it. It's just an upgrade.
Richard Paz
IT managerChildren's Relief
Nursery |
| | | | | |
| |
|
Richard Paz, IT manager at Children's Relief Nursery, a nonprofit
family support services agency in Portland, Ore., said he's unsure
about his Vista plans for 2007.
"Since we're a nonprofit, we have to be careful with what we
spend," said Paz, who added that he would wait until Vista becomes
available on TechSoup.org, a marketplace for low-cost
technology for nonprofit organizations.
Paz said the need to upgrade his hardware would also hold him
back from an early adoption.
"I don't see any advantage to adopting it," Paz said. "It's just
an upgrade. There's a lot of hype. If I were an IT manager at a
large corporation, I'd say you need to wait a couple years to see
what pans out. A lot of people jump for it just because. But I
think the majority of companies, whether a nonprofit or a small or
big corporation, are still running [Microsoft] Server 2003. They
already have an infrastructure in place, and [Vista] would mean a
lot of change. People are just getting used to XP."
Yesterday, Microsoft officially released Vista, the first new
version of its Windows operating system in five years. Vista, which
Microsoft has made available in four versions (two for the home and
two for business), boasts a flashy new graphical user interface
that leverages a PC's graphics card. Microsoft also overhauled its
approach to security with Vista, which has had third-party security
vendors blitzing the media with stories about why their products
will still be essential on the desktop.
But businesses are left wondering how important it is for them
to upgrade to Vista when Windows XP serves them just fine. Vista
will require many organizations to upgrade their hardware. The new
interface will necessitate some training, and just the man-hours
alone for IT workers upgrading individual machines will cost some
organizations a small fortune.
AMI reported that the PC refresh rate, currently at every three
to four years, will be a leading driver of adoption. Also, efforts
to standardize operating systems for security purpose, a 2007
priority among 40% of SMBs, will be a factor.
"On the one side, just the fact that small businesses tend to have
fewer PCs and laptops to upgrade, it would make Vista less painful
for them," sad Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT Research
in Hayward, Calif. "But on the flip side, smaller businesses tend
to have tighter IT budgets than large enterprises do. Unless a
company's desktops were so archaic that a hardware upgrade is in
the works already, I don't see them going to Vista just to get
Vista."
King said SMB adoption will be more robust about 18 to 24 months
down the line, and businesses might take the opportunity to look
around at alternative desktop operating systems.
"Since Vista requires a significant hardware upgrade, this is a
time to look at alternatives. There hasn't ever been a better time
to think about desktop Linux. It used to be for a long time that
Linux was like a hobbyist project. It's still not as easy or
seamless a user experience as Windows is, but if you're looking at
significant investments, and you're looking at your workforce
getting used to a new operating system environment anyway -- Office
2007 particularly has a steep learning curve -- why not look at
alternatives?"
Let us know what you think about the story; email:
Shamus McGillicuddy,
News Writer