“People-ready business” was the primary catchphrase at the November 30, 2006, “Business
Value” launch of Microsoft Windows Vista,
Office 2007, and Exchange 2007. Office General Manager
Kirk Koenigsbauer said, “It's the synergy among Microsoft
Office, Windows Vista, and Microsoft Exchange Server.
Together, they deliver the core platform for a people-ready
business—one that puts an organization's employees at the
center of driving business outcomes and success.”
Although I can't argue with the reality that employees
drive success, I have to wonder how effectively that slogan will convince IT to hurry and upgrade. In a letter to
Microsoft customers, Steve Ballmer said, “The joint launch
of Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will open the door to an
era of even greater productivity and innovation.” But I know
that the IT department in the company I work for won't
even consider any of these products any time soon—especially not based on Microsoft's message that end users need
them to be more innovative and productive.
A recent nonscientific poll of our readers indicates
that IT is not rushing to deploy Vista: 59 percent of the 350
respondents have no plans to upgrade; 16 percent plan to
deploy within 18 months; 11 percent within 12 months, and
13 percent within 6 months. So, as Ballmer asked, “Why
should you risk disrupting your business to take advantage of these new features and capabilities?” His answer:
“Because business has changed and new tools are required.
No one questions the competitive advantages that come
when we can communicate and collaborate instantly with
colleagues and customers around the world.”
Maybe I'm cynical, but that reason sounds a little too
squishy for me. Lots of businesses are getting along just
fine with the old tools, thank you very much. But are there
factors that would be compelling enough to make you eager
to upgrade?
Don't Say “Time and Money”
A marketing expert once warned me never to tell IT pros
that something would save them time or money—IT pros
know from experience such claims are rarely true. However,
IT is under constant pressure to add value to the bottom
line while reducing costs—i.e., to save time and money.
So maybe the “people-ready business” slogan is just
a way for Microsoft to avoid blatantly claiming that Vista,
Office 2007, and Exchange 2007 will save you time and
money. From that perspective, I was interested to see
Microsoft pointing to a white paper, “Analysis of the Business Value of Windows Vista,” which was based on a study
Microsoft commissioned from IDC (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/newday/docs/IDCWP.pdf). This
study examined companies participating in the Vista Technical Adoption Program (TAP) and found that Vista saves
IT and users time and money. Specifically, the annual IT
labor cost for Vista is $470; for Windows XP Service Pack
2 (XP SP2), it's $507; for XP, $536; and for Windows 2000
(Win2K) client, $593. The annual end-user labor cost for
Vista is $2,281; for XP SP2, $2421; for XP, $2435; and for
Win2K, $2462.
According to the white paper, the savings Vista affords
come from four major areas:
- Lower service desk costs, which the study attributes to
Vista's improved reliability, security, and self-healing
abilities.
- Lower desktop engineering and support costs, which
the white paper defines as “planning, project management, PC rollouts, security threat evaluation, application and patch deployments and image management.”
- Higher end-user productivity, which purportedly
results from Vista's improved desktop search and collaboration capabilities.
The white paper concludes, “Our guidance for organizations that want to maximize their return on investment of
Windows Vista is that they should use the operating system
as a catalyst for improving overall infrastructure optimization. By using this approach, the organization can receive
both the core benefits and the potentially much larger IT
process improvement benefits simultaneously.” That part
about “improving overall infrastructure optimization”
makes me wonder whether IDC is trying to shore up the
argument that Vista inherently saves time and money—
after all, this study was paid for by Microsoft.
Are You Convinced?
I'm a tech freak, and I want the latest and greatest of everything the minute it's available. So I'm all over Vista, Office
2007, and Exchange 2007. But out there in the trenches,
you still have your day-to-day job to do. Are Microsoft's
slogans and claims about “people-ready” business value
strong enough to convince you that your organization
needs these new products sooner rather than later? Please
let me know what factors are important to your plans (or
lack of plans) to upgrade. Tell me how this publication can
help you.
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leoskypiloit March 09, 2007 (Article Rating: