[Infowarrior] - Vista in danger of being bypassed by businesses

[Richard Forno]

http://tinyurl.com/2ynlkm

Vista in danger of being bypassed by businesses

With many companies waiting for Vista SP1 and the next version of Windows
due to be released in late 2009, Microsoft faces having businesses skip
Vista completely


By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

November 14, 2007

It will be one year that Windows Vista has been available to businesses on
Nov. 30, yet many companies still are waiting until the release of Vista's
first service pack to upgrade. But with Microsoft planning to release the
next version of Windows, code-named Windows 7, in late 2009 or 2010, there
remains a strong possibility that companies might skip over Vista altogether
in favor of the next release of Windows.

Microsoft provided an optimistic update on the state of Vista on Wednesday
now that third-party companies have released more drivers and applications
for the OS, smoothing over compatibility issues that plagued early adopters.

According to Mike Nash, a vice president of product management for Windows
client, the experience of running Vista on hardware that is certified for it
"is a lot better today than it was a month ago and certainly a lot better
than it was [last November]."

Microsoft has said it will release a roll-up of updates for Vista, Windows
Vista SP (Service Pack) 1, in the first quarter of next year, the same time
frame in which it will release Windows Server 2008. Microsoft is hoping
businesses upgrade to both products simultaneously, and it's expected that
many companies that have factored Vista into their enterprise planning
budgets will do just that.

Nash said that Microsoft signed the highest number of enterprise licenses
for Windows desktop ever at the end of fiscal year 2007, a fact he said
bodes well for Vista enterprise adoption. "They wouldn't be licensing
Windows desktop if they didn't have the intent to deploy Vista," he said.

But despite Microsoft's rosy view on the future of business adoption of
Vista, users of the OS said there are still enough problems with it that
some companies may opt to wait until Windows 7 to update their worker
desktops. Microsoft has said little about Windows 7 except it's in the works
and should be out about three years after Vista, which was released to
consumers in January following its business rollout.

Users complain that Vista doesn't run well with older hardware -- either on
PCs or with connected devices like printers that are a year or two old. Even
on PCs that are supposedly meant to be optimized for Vista, there are still
odd performance and compatibility issues with certain devices, applications,
and OS features that make using it a less than optimal experience.

For this reason, one East Coast IT consultant who specializes in Microsoft
products said that unless Windows Vista SP1 really smooths over the problems
people are having with Vista, "there's a good chance many people will hold
on to XP until the next version of Windows."

"They're just so many little usability issues," said the consultant, who
asked not to be named, but who has nearly 20 years of experience with
Microsoft software. "I can just imagine when the next one comes out,
Microsoft will actually get it right and everyone will breathe a sigh of
relief."

Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft who said he has
experienced his own frustrations with Vista's quirky performance issues,
agreed that if Microsoft releases Windows 7 on schedule, there may be "less
of a need to upgrade to Vista" for businesses that follow the typical "every
other release" rule for Windows.

In Cherry's opinion, Windows XP Service Pack 2, a major security release for
XP, was less a service pack than an upgrade to Windows. Businesses running
this version of Windows may choose to bypass Vista and opt to install
Windows 7 instead if it is released in the next few years, depending on
where they are in their hardware upgrade cycle. The release of a third
service pack for XP, which Microsoft has confirmed is in the works, supports
this theory, since it adds "a couple more years" to the viability of XP in
the enterprise.

Still, one Microsoft partner thought that the possibility that businesses
won't be adopting Vista in droves until 2008 means it may be Windows 7 that
will be skipped over, not Vista.

Brian Randell, a senior consultant with MCW Technologies in Los Angeles,
acknowledged it was initially rough going with Vista because of hardware
incompatibility problems. However, he said that these issues were more the
fault of hardware vendors not preparing their products for Vista than
Microsoft doing anything wrong.

"Microsoft delivered a really solid OS," he said. "The fact is, for as long
as Vista was in beta, the hardware vendors didn't seem to have their act
together."

Randell said that even companies that work closely with Microsoft have heard
little about Windows 7 and that most are concerned more with what effect
Vista SP1 will have on business adoption of the OS than on any future
releases.