Although a "significant" number of corporations are hesitating to move to Windows Vista, businesses should bite the bullet because Microsoft is retiring Windows XP , and there's no guarantee it will deliver a next-generation operating system on time or with compelling features, a research analyst said.
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"Vista is an inevitability, for a number of reasons," said Ben Gray, an analyst at Forrester Research. He then ticked off several, including Windows XP's announced retirement and unsubstantiated talk about Vista's successor, Windows 7.
"They are sort of in a caught between a rock and a hard place situation," said Gray. Administrators may not want to move to Vista, but neither of the alternatives -- the older XP and the not-even-officially-scheduled Windows 7 -- is attractive, he said.
It will become more difficult to stick with Windows XP when top-tier computer makers pull it off their operating system lists on June 30, the date Microsoft has mandated that manufacturers stop offering it on new PCs. The company will also yank XP from retail sales then.
And companies considering skipping Vista altogether by migrating from XP straight to Windows 7 may be punished, Gray added.
"To be blunt, customers know very little about Windows 7," he said, noting that with the exception of a few facts -- the Vista successor will come in both consumer and business editions and versions for both 32- and 64-bit machines -- "everything else is pure rumor and speculation."
Microsoft's poor track record on making release dates and crafting operating systems without discarding major features should make corporate decision-makers take pause, Gray said. "Ironically, one of Microsoft's biggest weaknesses, the unpredictable release schedule of its desktop operating systems, will likely spur adoption of Windows Vista as a result of this lack of faith in Microsoft delivering Windows 7 on time," he said.
"You can't count on Windows 7 being perfect," Gray said.
The aging of XP and the uncertainty of Windows 7 mean businesses really have no choice: They have to move to Vista, whether they like it or not, he noted.
"We get this question daily from clients: Should they continue to deploy XP, which they know and love, or skip Vista entirely for Windows 7?" Gray said. "We're not here to sell Windows XP or Windows Vista or Windows 7, but Vista looks like an inevitability."
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