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The version of Windows Vista for businesses has been out for about a month now. But industry analysts are saying that IT departments are not ready to upgrade to the new OS.  There are a number of problems why this is happening, but it’s not the OS itself.

For one, Microsoft is not releasing patches (software fixes) until early next month. This can prove fatal if a bug, virus, or any other program gets into the system. This is evident with the release of Internet Explorer 7 earlier this month. Patches immediately went out for Windows XP and Server 2003, but not Vista.
Another reason is software. The only thing right now that runs natively on Vista is Microsoft’s Office 2007. Businesses that run anti-virus or VPN (virtual private networking) software are out of luck, for now. The reason why this is the case for those two “genres” of software is due to Microsoft’s reluctance to release the code for Vista to vendors creating the software.

The move to Vista will not happen until early 2008 for most businesses. Some (including myself) are predicting that the switch for consumers won’t happen until PC makers start installing the OS into their new machines. When will that happen? Nobody knows.  The system requirements for all editions of Vista would require a fair number of hardware upgrades to run it, or a new PC.

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