Corporate IT unfazed by Vista delay

27.03.2006
Information technology executives last week said that Microsoft Corp.'s decision to delay the release of some versions of Windows Vista -- those aimed at consumers and small businesses -- likely won't affect their rollouts of the software.

That's primarily because few of them planned to aggressively roll out the new operating system.

Microsoft will release Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise to volume- licensing customers in November. However, the four consumer editions of Vista, although still being released to manufacturing in November, won't arrive on store shelves until January -- after the holiday shopping season. Microsoft had expected Vista-based PCs to be on sale by late November.

Marc West, CIO at H&R Block Inc."No surprise," Marc West, CIO at H&R Block Inc., said of the delay. The Kansas City, Missouri-based company has 120,000 PCs throughout its thousands of tax-preparation branch offices running either Windows 2000 or XP. According to West, H&R Block has no plans to upgrade to Vista until 2009 at the earliest.

"Given the current state of XP, it is wise for them to go for a higher-quality and more security-tested product versus rushing for a deadline and having problems," he said.

"I'd rather have a stable, secure product than a rushed product that immediately needs to be patched," said John-Mark Tucker, IT manager at Seattle-based manufacturer Red Dot Corp., which is part of Microsoft's Technology Adoption Program (TAP).