Vista in danger of being bypassed by businesses

It will be one year that Windows Vista has been available to businesses on
Nov. 30, yet many companies still are waiting until the release of Vista's first
service pack to upgrade. But with Microsoft planning to release the next version
of Windows, code-named Windows 7, in late 2009 or 2010, there remains a strong
possibility that companies might skip over Vista altogether in favor of the
next release of Windows.

Microsoft on Wednesday provided an optimistic update on the state of Vista
now that third-party companies have released more drivers and applications for
the OS, smoothing over compatibility issues that plagued early adopters.

According to Mike Nash, a vice president of product management for Windows
client, the experience of running Vista on hardware that is certified for it
"is a lot better today than it was a month ago and certainly a lot better
than it was [last November]."

Microsoft has said it will release a roll-up of updates for Vista, Windows
Vista Service Pack (SP) 1, in the first quarter of next year, in the same time
frame it will release Windows Server 2008. Microsoft is hoping businesses upgrade
to both products simultaneously, and it's expected that many companies that
have factored Vista into their enterprise planning budgets will do just that.

Nash said that Microsoft signed the highest number of enterprise licenses for
Windows desktop ever at the end of fiscal year 2007, a fact he said bodes well
for Vista enterprise adoption. "They wouldn't be licensing Windows desktop
if they didn't have the intent to deploy Vista," he said.

But despite Microsoft's rosy view on the future of business adoption of Vista,
users of the OS said there are still enough problems with it that some companies
may opt to wait until Windows 7 to update their worker desktops. Microsoft has
said little about Windows 7 except it's in the works and should be out about
three years after Vista, which was released to consumers in January following
its business rollout.

Users complain that Vista doesn't run well with older hardware -- either on
PCs or with connected devices like printers that are a year or two old. Even
on PCs that are supposedly meant to be optimized for Vista, there are still
odd performance and compatibility issues with certain devices, applications
and OS features that make using it a less than optimal experience.

For this reason, one East Coast IT consultant who specializes in Microsoft
products said that unless Windows Vista SP1 really smooths over the problems
people are having with Vista, "there's a good chance many people will hold
on to XP until the next version of Windows."

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