Smart Company Towards Microsoft Vista

"My first position paper"
Posted by Nancy.
Feb 05, 2007.

At the public launch of Vista, a speech in New York by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stated that Vista Operating System will this time be recognized as a leap past Windows XP and will be a key to the era we are approaching with tons of recognition features. The Vista improvement is not just far more security but most likely to cite the accumulating ability of the digital content uses. As the result, this effort take Microsoft to step up closer to being a digital hub along with handful partners and vendors-- AMD, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lenovo, etc. among others.

From the consumer point of views, Vista is the new way to do Windows’s jobs. Photos that were trapped on the hard drive could transmit wirelessly to places around your house through the digital frames and Wi-Fi network. Music and movies can be shot wirelessly to multiple devices without the same old problem of copy protection which has been fixed by Windows Media 11, the technology inside Vista. Up to this point, I found that many new Vista features are already in Mac OS X. However, does it really matter to PC users who came up with those features first as long as Windows operating system is more user friendly? In my opinion, the improvement of technology would reward users no matter who create or develop this technology. Unless PC users have joined the Apple camp, thereafter their new machines will be running Vista.

Nowadays there are more than 90 percent of world wide businesses that their computer networks are running on Microsoft Windows products. Trend of Vista will sooner or later be the next operating systems for most office workstations that have used the Windows platform. For companies, Vista adds new benefits and, in the long run, will make computing easier, faster, and a lot more fun. However, rushing to adopt Vista immediately may not seem likely to be a good choice at this time. In smart companies, IS/IT leaders should aware of those following issues before upgrading or changing their whole new systems.

The potential security hole is one of many issues that were just discovered in the online blogger discussion. The speech recognition flaw generated the new term “Shout Hacking”. Even though it might be easily resolved by disable this feature, this problem may discredit the new launched OS more or less. Microsoft did not consider this as a big problem and also recommended users who concern about this issue to turn off the speech recognition feature or shut down Window Media Player if they encounter a file that try to execute the voice command on their systems (refer to Shout Hacking, InfoWorld 02/01/2007).

Another issue is the incomplete support for Windows Vista in terms of both hardware and software from lead vendors. Many of them could not tell when they will complete new operating system drivers or update their old products. Unbelievably, not all manufacturers are ready for video and sound cards that support Vista highlighted features. In addition, Vista is costly in term of money and time investment. If your company really wants to go with this choice, you’d better ask yourself that “Are you ready to spend huge money to buy or upgrade you workstation and systems to optimize Vista?”, or “Have your teams been ready to configure everything including loading data, installing their applications and getting peripherals working?”

Despite Window XP after years of services, I believed that it will not be obsolete and still has an industry-wide support. According to Computer World Newsletter issued on January 25, 2007, it was reported that, by the end of this year, XP will be installed on 77.1% of all PCs worldwide and Vista on just 12.3%. Of course, these numbers will eventually be switched but it may take a certain period of time. That means the industry will make sure their computer networks still work great on XP platform. As the result, the organization would not have an impact within a few years. On the other hand, companies should take this opportunity to planning ahead on switching XP to new upcoming operating systems (if they want) including training and planning to upgrade new system since Windows Vista contains totally new functions and require an optimized station to run.

In summary, Vista is a cool operating system in the digital world that technology lovers individually should once give it a try. In corporate point of views, there are more than just how powerful this operating system is to be considered. The most important thing is whether this technology change will make an impact on how the company is run and how much benefit will be received. Vista not only requires user knowledge, powerful workstation, and compatible peripherals but also more money to upgrade the existing system that is currently performed. In addition, for now, this new launched OS does not stand in the solid position as XP does. Therefore Vista should be an eye catching OS that still need a period of time to prove how efficient it is and adapt toward the organization growth. The fact that Microsoft has still continue working on XP and will release the service package 3 next year is clearly evidenced to a company using XP that there should not be any problems causing from using XP soon. My perspective to a corporate level is that we should stay a little bit longer with what we have while use a plenty of time to plan on training your staff and managing an IT budget for this new system.