Windows Vista for business debuts today

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Microsoft's much-touted, long-awaited next generation operating system (OS), Windows Vista, finally launches for business users today alongside fellow newcomers Exchange Server 2007 and Office 2007.

Vista's business arrival comes half a decade after its predecessor Windows XP was launched, but it may be the timeliness of the consumer launch, which won't happen until January 30, that hampers initial adoption levels, according to experts.

Many businesses, particularly large enterprises signed up to Microsoft's Software Assurance programme, are likely to have big numbers of people using Vista by the second half of next year, according to Ovum's principal analyst, David Bradshaw.

But there won't be that much activity before that timeframe due to the consumer launch occurring later than the business version of the OS.

Millions of consumers will come into contact with Vista after Christmas, providing a ready and willing pool of field testers, meaning that organisations will use the first half of the year to sit back and watch rather than act.

"Yes, it has taken longer than expected but that's because part way through the project Microsoft realised it wasn't good enough just to tinker with XP," said Bradshaw.

"The adoption of Windows XP really only began when Microsoft rolled out Service Pack 1 and fixed the majority of bugs. Microsoft definitely learned its lesson there and has done an awful lot of field testing so people are much more confident that this product is not going to be riddled with bugs."

The fact that many applications have been created based on the Vista interface will prompt organisations who want to take advantage of these to upgrade, creating an additional adoption catalyst, according to Bradshaw, who also said that users who do move will be knee-deep in compatibility testing for some time.

"Standard applications may work, but customised versions might get broken by moving from XP," he added.

"But, having said that, the majority of modern business applications tend to have a web front end so aren't so affected by what happens on the desktop. But old style client/server applications will need testing."

IT PRO has already conducted an in-depth review of Office 2007 and will be attending this afternoon's launch of Exchange, Office and Vista.

Stay tuned for additional coverage live from the event later today.

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