When I bought a new computer about six months ago it came with Windows Vista. I didn’t mind this as I knew this was the latest release from Microsoft and I thought it would be fun to work with it and learn how it differed from XP (those Mac commercials didn’t scare me off from earlier in the year). As a fairly typical home user I didn’t have a lot of different programs that I would be utilizing to have to worry about compatibility with Vista. I picked up the latest Office suite which was going to work just fine for me for the types of tasks I perform at my house (basic accounting and documents, occasional presentations, and utilizing Outlook for email and the calendar functions it includes).
There are many people like me who will pick up the newest OS whenever we decide we want to upgrade and get a new computer. We don’t worry much about how the new OS will work with other programs, nor do we get overly concerned with the new features or security inherit in it, or how it works in a network environment.
For businesses and big organizations this process of adopting a new desktop OS for the masses is much different. To adopt a new product like Vista across the enterprise without much testing and analysis is similar to buying a car sight unseen and not knowing what you are getting (yes, you can buy a car from eBay and get assurances on quality, but I’m not sure I could ever do that myself).
Organizations will often have proprietary programs that they use and will need to test how these programs work with a new OS such as Vista. Indeed, making sure that programs that are used are “Vista Certified” will be important for the organization deciding on adopting it on an enterprise level. I actually came across a site that lists programs as Vista certified.
Are the programs your company uses on a regular basis on this list? If not, you will want to wait until this problem is rectified and your program works properly with Vista. Otherwise, you will have some issues if you try to force this “marriage” between the OS and your program of choice. Many companies like to wait also on the first service pack (SP1) to come out before adopting as well. Word on the street is this will be available in early 2008.
In a recent blog I read Forrester Research is saying that one-third of businesses will adopt the OS for the enterprise by mid-2008 time frame. Is this figure to high, or do you think enterprise-wide adoption will follow this pattern?
What are your organization’s plans for enterprise wide adoption of Visa?