Microsoft, as you'd expect, is extremely pleased with the current state of its deployment tools, as well as its product release schedule. And make no mistake, consultants such as Avanade's LeSueur and HP's Foster see no downside to a large volume of simultaneous Microsoft platform upgrades, either. That would be termed 'bread and butter' to those folks. But IT administrators living without Microsoft consultants aren't quite as happy about having to swallow so much at once.

'It's definitely a concern,' Connelly says. 'I'm a cautious guy, and typically, I'd be doing the server upgrades first, one at a time, and follow those with the desktop upgrades. But Microsoft releasing three new platforms at once doesn't happen very often. That's put us in a spot, plus we were moving to Microsoft CRM as well.' So at the moment, Connelly has separated his server upgrades from his desktop upgrades, but he is forced to roll out several new desktop platforms simultaneously while still testing a new server back end. 'So far, it's working fine, but it's definitely a worry.'

The cautious perspective to be sure, but that's not to say it can't be done. Justin Ainsworth, senior IT manager at Sierra Nevada Brewing, is in the same boat but is taking the Redmond product blitz in stride.

'We're just taking it one step at a time,' Ainsworth says. 'Being in the Vista TAP [Technology Adoption Program] program definitely helped. That gave us a lot of early experience that's really paying off now that we're rolling out companywide. Also, you should very closely check out the Business Desktop Deployment [BDD] guide materials. That's very good stuff and definitely worth reading before a rollout.'

Overall, the perspectives Connelly and Ainsworth offer are well representative of the current viewpoint IT administrators have on Microsoft's product cornucopia: It's a lot of material, but taking it one step at a time will see them through. Their confidence in and appreciation of Vista's new deployment tools are mirrored in InfoWorld's testing -- as will be demonstrated in an upcoming Test Center review currently in the works.