Many companies standardised on Windows NT and Office 97 as their corporate personal computing environment for good reasons. Windows NT 4.0 was touted (by Microsoft) as the most stable, secure OS available. And Office 97 was described as a quantum leap ahead of its predecessors (and competitors).
But it's been six years, and many environments are in dire need of a face-lift. Newer releases of both the Windows and Office platforms have come to market, and companies that are holding on to NT and Office 97 lag behind, facing issues of supportability, security exposures, and compatibility with present industry de facto standards.
Meanwhile, organisations that have standardised on Windows 2000 and Office 2000 are actually in reasonably good shape and can likely defer an upgrade until .NET and Office 11 have at least one service pack under their respective belts.
This spring will bring a new round of PC purchasing, and 2003 capital budgets will be maturing, so it's prime time for organisations using NT and Office 97 to prepare to adopt Microsoft's XP platforms. The first step is formulating a project plan for Windows XP and Office XP to ensure consistent, cost-effective development of the new standard.
First understand the background
In 1996, Windows NT 4.0 and Office 97 were released and heralded as the choice for functionality, reliability, and security for their respective platforms, prompting many organisations worldwide to standardize on them. It's for those same valid reasons that organizations have ignored subsequent upgrades.
But as with everything, there's a price to pay. As organisations continued to purchase PCs, they ended up with a mixed environment of OSs and office suites due in part to several factors:
- Manufacturers such as Dell, Compaq, and IBM no longer bundled Windows NT with new equipment.
- For technical and business reasons, new PCs were not always retrofitted with the older standard OS and office suite.
- Clients sometimes insisted on running the latest version of technology as it became available.
- Incompatibilities existed between Windows NT and some of the newer hardware standards available, such as plug-and-play and USB technologies.
While cleaning up a mixed environment is a valid reason to upgrade, there are also several other reasons for considering the XP infrastructure:
- Microsoft's Product Support Lifecycle announcement last fall: While it doesn't add much new information with respect to Windows NT 4.0 and Office 97, it does punctuate the end-of-life proximity for such platforms and adds some urgency.
- Microsoft Open License (MOL) agreement: Since many organisations have finally signed on with MOL and they're already paying for the new software, they might as well install and use it.
- As 2003 capital budgets mature and a new purchasing cycle revs up, delaying an upgrade only draws more cost at the end of the road. Organisations that retrofit with legacy standards and later upgrade will find they have considerably more work to do.
It is for these reasons that organisations should now undertake a project to select a common XP platform and take steps to implement a new standard across the company.
Platform alternatives
Before delving into available options, remember that this article is geared toward enterprises that have not already upgraded to at least Windows 2000/Office 2000.
As noted earlier, organizations on a 2000 platform are in excellent shape and should likely not consider an upgrade to an all-XP platform. The amount of effort in the upgrade project compared against the incremental benefits doesn't favor the move.
Here are the four primary upgrade options and related issues that require attention.
1. Standardise on Windows XP and Office XP
A pure XP environment with Windows XP as the base OS and Office XP as the productivity suite is the best choice for platform standardisation.
Both XP offerings have proven to be very stable and well received by the technical and business community. Both have also released at least one service pack, which will typically address the many issues associated with first releases. Both have many years remaining with respect to product support life, and will require equal or less upgrade effort than standardisation options. Windows XP, in particular, offers greater compatibility with legacy applications than does Windows 2000. Windows XP also offers a higher level of compatibility for legacy systems older than Windows 2000.
This makes Windows XP a more attractive upgrade than Windows 2000 if older software is to be maintained in the environment.
2. Do nothing (wait for .NET)
This is a short-term option that has no visible costs but in reality does have associated costs. Remaining with a mixed Windows/Office environment throughout the organisation is costly to support, does not address data incompatibility issues, limits clients' ability to utilise new technologies, and limits clients' access to more productive and stable technologies.
If organizations wait until the release of Windows and Office .NET platforms before upgrading, they'll lag behind in technology, and there will be an increasing number of nonstandard PCs deployed throughout the organisation as new PCs are purchased and not faithfully retrofitted to the legacy standard.
The .NET platforms will be very new and so completely unproven--therefore inherently riskier alternatives to consider, at least in the early releases. I advise organisations to wait until the first .NET service pack before mass adoption. Such service packs are unlikely to be released in 2003.
Keep in mind, however, that this option becomes less viable as time progresses and only delays the inevitable need to upgrade the Windows and Office standards. Beyond the short term, this is not a viable option.
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