Tube Lines, the
company that maintains and upgrades infrastructure on the Jubilee,
Northern and Piccadilly London Underground lines, is offering staff
big discounts on
Microsoft Office 2007 to build up support for its migration to
the
Windows Vista
operating system next year.
The company is planning a 2,500-user roll-out of Windows Vista
in the third quarter of 2008. It plans to renew all desktop PC
hardware and install Office 2007, Sharepoint Server and Microsoft
Exchange 2007.
Tube Lines is offering staff the Microsoft Office 2007
Professional suite, which normally costs more than £350, for £17
under its Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft. Three hundred staff
have signed up in the first eight weeks.
"We are making sure as many people as possible take advantage of
the £17 offer so that they get used to the software," said Adrian
Davey, head of IT at Tube Lines.
The offer will build up support among end-users for the
migration and reduce their learning curve, he said. "If we reach
our target of 70% take-up by May 2008, then the change process
becomes easier," he said.
The company has been planning its migration from Windows XP
Service Pack 1 to Windows Vista since the fourth quarter of
2006.
Davey has used the Apptitude tool from software and IT service
supplier Camwood to identify which of the company's 211
applications could cause compatibility issues under Windows
Vista.
Davey also plans to take advantage of other benefits Microsoft
provides with its Enterprise Agreements, such as free training and
consulting.
Tube Lines has joined Microsoft's Rapid Deployment Programme to
gain early access to Windows Server 2008, and Davey is evaluating
how the Terminal Service feature it offers compares to the
company's existing Citrix implementation.
For the past three months Davey has been running a 30-user proof
of concept to optimise the configuration of Windows Vista for Tube
Lines' applications.