Opinion

Beware Vista by stealth

Finance | 30 May 2008

With a little planning, the arrival of an unexpected guest need not spell disaster, suggests Paul Sparkes. 

Many of you will have heard of the new Microsoft Vista operating system but will have no plans to upgrade to it. Research among our users, many of whom are charities, supports this premise with a resounding 59 per cent saying that they have no immediate plans to move to Vista or to purchase Vista compatible PCs. However, life is never that simple and those operating in the charity sector should be aware that they may be forced to rethink their plans for a Vista free zone. Microsoft’s reluctance to allow PC manufacturers to ship new PCs and lap-tops with anything other than its latest shiny operating system means that Vista may well arrive in many organisations by stealth.

A little over a year after its release, few enterprises have yet migrated wholesale to Vista, according to the analyst Forrester. One of the reasons for this is that migration to a new operating system is considered to be a multi-year project, and this is never more true than in the charity sector where resources and time are at such a premium.

Despite the fact that a move to Vista in 2008 is unplanned, calls to our customer support teams are already suggesting that it is arriving through the back door and latest statistics show that 16 per cent of our users are now running it. Replacing just one broken machine could mean that all carefully laid plans for a managed roll out will need to be torn up and organisations will be forced into running both XP and Vista in the same site, whether they have made a conscious decision to do so or not.

The impact of Vista arriving in this way should not be underestimated. Many of the software applications already being used on a day-to-day basis may not be compatible with the new operating system and as charities are typically carefully managed, there is very little opportunity for flexibility.

Research analysts Gartner Group sounds a similar note of caution. It predicts that there will be elements of Vista’s functionality that might affect the way applications – and in particular bespoke software that has been written for a specific purpose – will operate. It also recommends that organisations take 12 to 18 months to test and pilot Vista before fully rolling out the system.

It would appear that charities are taking this advice on board and despite looking to replace their accounting systems more frequently they are still not ready to make that leap to Vista. Whereas many would run their systems for between five and ten years before considering a replacement, the need to make business information more accessible to managers and trustees is driving the need to review more frequently. Many of the organisations we speak to are looking to leverage their data to produce management reports and statutory reports such as the SoFA more easily and rapidly with minimal administrative overhead.

With the inevitable period of change that goes hand in hand with implementing a new system, you could assume that charities may choose to go the whole way and install Vista too. Interestingly, this is not the case. Not one of the organisations who have upgraded their system in recent months have plans to run it on Vista, despite its compatibility.

While Gartner’s advice is aimed at larger companies, those in the charity sector are just as dependent on their software and no one will want to be a guinea pig. This cautious approach is recommended and before you jump ship, its worth running a system check to find out which of your current software will run under Vista.

This can be done quite easily by downloading the Vista upgrade advisor from Microsoft’s website. This will provides a personalised report on which applications sited on the system, are Vista compatible. Software developers have been forced to undertake a serious rewrite of their applications to ensure they are Vista compliant and while many will have completed their projects, some still have not. If buying new applications, check that the logo ‘Works with Vista’ is displayed.

Paul Sparkes is a product director at IRIS

Tweet