Vista – plan before you deploy

There is now a pressing need to begin evaluating Microsoft Vista, according to Michael Silver, research vice president at Gartner. “For most organisations, we believe 12 to 18 months of testing, planning and piloting will be required before mainstream Vista and Office 2007 deployment begins. Organisations need to understand their software inventory, do internal testing and work with independent software vendors to understand their support policies and timelines. If you haven’t started this process yet, consider starting now,” he says.

“The sooner you want to begin deploying Windows Vista and Office 2007, the sooner you need to begin testing. Organisations that run Windows 2000 and are trying to skip Windows XP should have already begun.”

This view is endorsed by Tim Jennings, research director of analyst firm Butler Group. “That is not to say that it is the only game in town, but whether we favour the massively dominant player, or look to alternatives such as Linux, the appearance of a new version of Windows on the desktop should at least be a trigger for organisations to review their strategy,” he says.

In an ideal world, Jennings suggests that most firms without a pressing need to upgrade should wait until Microsoft has rolled out its first Vista service pack to swat the most serious bugs before undertaking mass deployments. However, in practice, he concedes that technology is not the only factor in deciding such deployments.

“Operating system upgrades are now more closely linked into financial cycles, both those that originate from the vendor, such as Microsoft’s Software Assurance and other volume licensing programmes (40% of large organisations now purchase Microsoft software this way), and those of the organisation itself, with many having established a standard client ‘lifetime’ of three to four year s,” says Jennings.

Bug’s life
Gartner’s Silver noted that, while the analyst firm has advised in the past to wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1) before rolling out Microsoft software, the software giant’s improved ability to deploy bug fixes through its online Microsoft Update services means that the arrival of service packs are now less critical.

Paul Stoddart, Windows client marketing manager, argues that the functionality and productivity gains incorporated into Vista make upgrading to the new platform worth the migration pains. Within the actual operating system he points to improvements designed to help corporates boost productivity including enhanced document and file search functionality, better document previews, full volume encryption and improved reliability.

“Essentially one of the key things people notice straight away with Vista is improvements in the productivity area where we have put a lot of focus. Reliability is absolutely key as well. This is absolutely the most secure and reliable operating system we have ever built,” says Stoddart.

Audit trail
Other improvements include features to help companies meet the requirements of regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley. To achieve this, the platform maintains an audit trail of all activity on a PC by preventing users from overwriting documents.

Stoddart went on to talk up Vista’s green credentials, pointing to the operating system’s ‘instant on’ feature that cuts start-up times to around two seconds. Vista is also configured by default to revert to a power-saving sleep mode after one hour of inactivity.

“We have conducted new research that shows 30% of users leave PCs on all night, while 25% leave them on all weekend. The cost of the power for this is quite considerable,” said Stoddart. “Our research shows that £45 of power per PC per year is wasted. For 200 desktops this equates to 47 tonnes of carbon a year.”

While there can be no one-size-fits-all deployment guide for Vista, to develop a coherent strategy, Gartner advises companies to begin by taking an IT inventory and working with independent software vendors to understand implications of Vista rollouts on existing infrastructures. The analyst firm urges companies to develop an internal IT communication plan to address possible internal end-user inquiries about Vista migration plans.

Google unveils Office offering
In February, Google unveiled its Google Apps Premier Edition, a suite of hosted collaboration tools and productivity applications targeting enterprises. The launch was seen by industry commentators as Google’s first real attack on Microsoft’s core revenue stream – its Office application suite.

With an annual cost of $50 per user, the Premier Edition offers 10Gb of online storage per user and includes phone support. The search giant promises 99.9% availability for the offering (not including planned downtime). The Google Apps offering bundles:
• Google Docs and Spreadsheets
• Gmail web email services
• Google Calendar shared calendaring
• Google Talk instant messaging and voice over IP (VoIP) telephony