Mega blow to Microsoft as US Government departments ban Vista
By John Pospisil
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is part of the Department of Commerce, has banned Windows Vista from being installed on its internal network, according to documents leaked to Information Week.
NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency that promotes US innovation and industrial competitiveness by develops and promotes measurement, standards, and technology.
According to Information Week report, technology staff from NIST will meet on April 10 to discuss their concerns about Vista and the ”current ban of (Vista) on NIST networks”.
The US Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have already banned Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7 from being installed on their networks. The CIO of the FAA even suggested that he may opt to run Linux and Google Apps instead of Vista and Office.
This is a real blow for Microsoft’s public sector busienss. Government departments and organizations tend to be very wary of implementing new technology at the best of times. They become even more wary when other government departments express concerns about particular products — especially the NIST. This latest development could spark a domino effect, not only amongst government organizations in the US, but around the world.
The CIO of the FAA said one of the reasons he was reluctant to upgrade to Vista was because it was incompatible with some of the FAA’s legacy applications.
Everytime Microsoft releases a new version of its operating system, organisations around the world have to also upgrade or patch legacy applications to get them to work with the new operating system.
If you’ve ever been involved with upgrading to a new operating system at an enterprise level, you’ll know how expensive and disruptive this can be. It’s no laughing matter, and perhaps this is why with the release of Windows Vitsa, some government CIOs are actually taking a step back and considering whether the hassle of upgrading to Vista is worth the questionable benefits.
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