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Businesses get their first look at Microsoft's Vista |
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Written by asap
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Thursday, 30 November 2006 |
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Beginning Thursday, businesses that buy Windows licenses in bulk have first crack at Microsoft's new operating system, called Vista. Consumers can get Vista on home PCs beginning Jan. 30.
SALES PITCH
Microsoft and computer vendors contend that Vista will make Windows machines more secure, powerful and graphically dynamic, especially when combined with other products Microsoft is releasing simultaneously. Those include new back-end server software for businesses, as well as Office 2007, which brings sweeping changes to widely used programs such as Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint.
PC makers say Vista will enable computers to do things that previously were difficult or costly. For example, Lenovo Group Ltd., the world's No. 3 PC maker, says Vista greatly enhances data-backup tools it builds into its machines.
"All those capabilities are going to be one step better with Vista," said Clain Anderson, Lenovo's director of software peripherals.
COSTLY, COMPLICATED UPGRADE
But even with all the touted improvements, analysts expect Vista to only gradually emerge, especially in big organizations where upgrading can be a costly, complicated affair. Gartner Dataquest predicts that it will be 2010 before Vista outnumbers the previous operating system, Windows XP, on business computers.
"NO COMPELLING NEED" TO UPGRADE
Kamal Anand, chief technology officer for TradeStone Software Inc., a Gloucester, Mass.-based provider of supply-chain software, examined test versions of Vista and Office and found "no compelling need" to upgrade his company's 100 PCs and laptops anytime soon. Instead, Anand expects Vista and Office to slowly permeate TradeStone as it buys new PCs for employees in coming years.
"Nobody wants to go through the extra time and effort and money to upgrade an existing, well-working system," he said. | Only registered users can write comments. Please login or register. |
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