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September 26, 2008
• Vol.30 Issue 39
Page(s) 24 in print issue
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Are SMEs Avoiding Vista?
The Ins & Outs Of Delaying Vista Deployment
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Jump to first occurrence of: [WEISMAN]
Many analysts thought that the reason Vista had yet to take off was because most IT departments were waiting for SP1 to banish any bugs or security weaknesses typical in the first iteration of any new operating system. Moreover, Microsoft’s decision to stop selling new versions of Windows XP was expected to jump start the migration to its newer OS.
Instead, Vista increasingly is looking DOA, says Rob Meinhardt, CEO of systems management solution provider KACE (www.kace.com). Recently, King Research updated a study on Vista adoption on behalf of KACE and discovered that 60% of those surveyed have no plans to deploy Vista. And 92% say that Vista SP1 has not changed their plans for Vista deployment.
 The Reluctance To Upgrade
For his part, Paul Troyer, Web and systems administrator at worker's compensation software provider Tropics Software Technologies (www.gotropics.com), lists several reasons for his company’s reluctance to upgrade. First off, Troyer’s company does not want its operating system dictating its hardware upgrade cycle. “We believe there will be a learning curve and productivity loss when we roll out Vista, and we’re too busy currently to deal with training,” he says.
Moreover, some of the company’s backend software isn’t compatible with Vista, which translates into expensive upgrades or investing time and energy sussing out an alternative solution. “We see no real advantage or ‘must have’ features in Vista,” says Troyer. “Microsoft stripped out most of the main features [Vista] was supposed to have so it could ship.”
What about Vista’s vaunted security improvements? Says Troyer: “We agree [with Microsoft] that it is more secure, but in our environment with Active Directory, hardware firewall, and antivirus [applications], we are reasonably comfortable with XP.”
Wait & See
Roger Kay, founder and president of technology market analysis firm Endpoint Technologies (www.ndpta.com), concurs with Troyer that for many organizations, Vista offers minimal, if any, benefits and that WinXP is more stable for the time being.
“The level of disruption is high,” says Kay. “Vista’s model is very different from XP, and you may need new hardware—not just PCs but other devices like printers.” Moreover, Vista requires new applications, including homegrown programming. Software and drivers need to be modified to play nice with Vista, and it’s a crapshoot as to which partners make changes to make this a reality, Kay explains.
“Microsoft warns, ‘You’ll lose your competitive edge,’ but IT people are cynical,” Kay says. “They’re thinking, ‘Microsoft doesn’t understand my business. I’m not doing fantastic applications. I don’t need my client to be so capable.’”
Kay then cites that his mechanic uses Microsoft DOS on a 486 machine to access ancient programs that enable him to find parts, keep inventory, print out invoices, and keep customer lists. “He’s used the same system for 20 years, and every so often a white box guy comes around and tunes up everything. The service contract is maybe $100 a year.” Kay says this is an extreme example, but nonetheless, it further illustrates Troyer’s notion that a business should dictate upgrade cycles rather than the other way around.
Granted, Windows 7, due out in 2009 or 2010, does build on Vista and will most likely prove to be a bigger leap from WinXP than Vista, Kay points out. “But the rationale may be, ‘It’s going to cost me more money to make this conversion, so why not hold on to XP for now and squeeze more life from my existing stuff?’” Kay says.
Bypassing Vista
Recently, KACE CEO Meinhardt wrote a blog entry titled “Businesses Like XP No Matter How Bad Microsoft Says It Is” (rmeinhardt.typepad.com). It features a spoof screenshot of a devil crouched over text that reads “Microsoft XP, Evil Edition” over a black screen.
Despite Microsoft’s recent marketing campaigns extolling Vista’s virtues, Vista lacks anything compelling to cause IT managers to switch, Meinhardt says. “Historically, there was always something compelling going to the new operating system—it was more stable or faster or something. Vista may have a flashier user interface, but there’s nothing that makes people say, ‘Wow, I gotta have that,’” he says.
Meanwhile, the increasing use of Web-based applications and virtualization is making operating systems increasingly irrelevant. SaaS applications look pretty much the same whether you use WinXP, Vista, Mac, or Ubuntu. Meanwhile, Google has put together a set of business tools (Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar) that allows businesses to bypass Microsoft entirely.
At the same time, Endpoint’s Kay says that switching to alternative desktop operating systems does not make sense for many businesses. Red Hat recently withdrew support for its desktop Linux OS, and there isn’t another Linux-based desktop OS that is a first-class business OS, says Kay. And while Kay calls Apple’s Mac OS X a wonderful operating system, Apple as a company does not behave in a manner appropriate for businesses.
Finally, Kay thinks that Microsoft will slowly taper off support of WinXP. “There is scrambling in Redmond to make sure that XP support overlaps right up to [Windows] 7’s release,” he says. “At this point, the Windows 7 guys are being seen as white knights.” 
by Robyn Weisman
Notable Numbers From The King Research Study
According to King Research, 1,162 IT professionals responded to its June 2008 online survey, an update to its original November 2007 study on KACE’s behalf. More than 99% of respondents used Windows in their network deployments.
Here is a sampling of the statistics:
• 60% of respondents say they do not intend to deploy Vista.
• 92% of respondents say Vista SP1 has not changed their Vista deployment plans.
• 83% of respondents say that Vista’s ability to play well with their companies’ necessary business applications concerns them.
• 14% of respondents plan to skip Vista altogether in favor of Windows 7, while another 14% report they have delayed Vista deployments to learn more about Windows 7.
• 42% of respondents are contemplating deploying non-Windows operating systems to avoid a Vista migration, with 29% saying that Mac OS X is their top choice.
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