Windows Vista Waiting for Wider Acceptance

After the long wait for the new operating and office system
ended with the business launch of Windows Vista on November 30, 2006, the focus
turned to its actual adoption amongst enterprises. According to Microsoft, its
new software release will make people-ready businesses, simplify how they work
together, better protect and manage content, find information and improve their
business insight, and reduce deployment costs and security vulnerabilities.

The Adoption

A mixed reaction emerged from a cross section of large enterprises Dataquest
talked to. There is no denying that the new system that will be shipped will
come bundled with new software, but it is the large base of Windows XP users who
have shown reluctance to hurry for any major upgrade. According to Alagu
Balaraman, executive vice president, Information Technology & Corporate
Development, Godfrey Phillips India, "I am not looking at upgrading to
Vista in the immediate future. We have a standard refresh cycle and every year
one percent of the machines get changed in any case. We will follow this model
rather than spending additional money at this point on upgrading all the
hardware. All the new systems that are being brought are shipping with
Vista."

All reports emerging from global markets suggest a not-so
hurried adoption by enterprises. Talking about CIO strategy for Vista adoption,
Accenture CIO, Frank B Modruson says, "The key thing for a CIO is to set
expectation with the business and the user community and make a decision. CIOs
should have a point of view on any new product that is available in the market
place."

Even for the consumer version, which was launched recently,
there are similar sentiments. According to a recent Forrester Research,
households will adopt Vista much the same way that they adopted Windows XP. This
is against Microsoft projections that Vista will be adopted two times faster
than any other Windows client OS. According to estimates, Windows XP took more
than four years to reach a critical mass and there is a feeling that Vista might
take the same time. But Rishi Srivastava, director, Windows Client Business
Group, Microsoft India feels otherwise: "While it's still early to
predict any numbers, we do expect that in the first year customers will adopt
Windows Vista far faster than they adopted Windows XP. Broadly, we anticipate
that in about three years, the migration to the newer version should be
complete." Exuding confidence, Rishi Srivastava says, "We believe that
Windows Vista will see the largest and fastest adoption in the history of any
operating system we've shipped." He thinks that enterprise customers will
migrate to Vista in three years' time.

According to Jeremy Burton, group president of the enterprise
security and data management business unit, Symantec, "My thinking is that
large enterprises will wait and watch and will make the move on Vista in the
next 12-24 months. But the consumers will be more aggressive because they are
buying more PCs."

Microsoft Strategy

Microsoft is, however, upbeat and has a clear-cut strategy to tap both the
markets. According to Rishi Srivastava of Microsoft India, "We definitely
see both-upgradation and new deployment happening. New PCs shipping in India
post January 2007 are pre-loaded with Windows Vista. Additionally, we have been
working with enterprise customers through the Vista TAP (Technology Adoption
Program) and RDP (Rapid Deployment Program) and these customers based on their
early experience, are very keen to roll out Vista. Customers are very focused on
reducing costs of their IT environment and increasing security while still
enhancing the productivity of information workers and enabling their mobile
workforce.

"The key thing for a CIO is to set expectations with the business and the user community and make a decision. CIOs should have a point of view on any new product that is available in the market place"
-Frank B Modruson, CIO, Accenture
"I am not looking at upgrading to Vista in the immediate future. We have a standard refresh cycle and every year one percent of the machines get changed"
-Alagu Balaraman, executive VP, IT & Corporate Development, Godfrey Phillips India
"While it's still early to predict any numbers, we do expect that in the first year customers will adopt Windows Vista far faster than they adopted Windows XP. Broadly, we anticipate that in about 3 years, the migration to the newer version should be complete"
Rishi Srivastava, director, Windows Client Business Group, Microsoft India

The Outlook

From an enterprise perspective, it is expected that larger enterprises will
go for it more than the SMB segment due to cost and other factors. SMBs will
wait and watch till the hype around Vista subsides. Enterprises using XP or
those who have recently upgraded to XP will think twice before investing in
Microsoft. Probably realizing the importance of educating customers after
launching the product, Microsoft recently kicked off a road show covering seven
major cities to educate customers and partners on this significant product. It
has partnered with Intel, AMD, EMC, Nortel, Wipro, Kingston and Sonata for these
education initiatives covered cities including Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi,
Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai.

Sudesh Prasad

sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in