Tracey Fellows, the newly appointed managing director for Microsoft Australia, has expressed satisfaction with the take-up rate of Windows Vista amongst corporate users, contrary to some customers' comments.
In her first interview with ZDNet Australia since her appointment on Wednesday, Fellows said Vista was currently only available to volume licensing customers so it would typically take time to roll out.
"But we're pleased with our early adopters and the discussions we're having with other customers about adoption," she said.
Microsoft has 1,200 early adopters worldwide as part of a program which includes Vista, Office and Exchange Server 2007. The company declined to reveal the number of Australian organisations involved.
In Australia, the NSW Department of Education and Training has said licensing and implementation costs have stymied mass adoption of Vista. A majority of chief information officers and systems administrators polled by ZDNet Australia are also in no rush to roll out Vista because the operating system requires too much processing power and doesn't provide a compelling business case to upgrade.
Meanwhile, Fellows said the consumer launch of Vista and Office 2007 would be her first official engagement as managing director. She will continue to work in her role of director, business and marketing operations, until she assumes the promoted Steve Vamos's role on 8 February.
She has been part of Microsoft Australia's leadership team since joining the software giant three years ago.
The appointment was "a very exciting role for me", she said, as well as being "a milestone in my career".
"We're fortunate to have a strong business in Australia and I want to continue that momentum.
"We want to continue to build great and diverse talent and I want people who are passionate about what they do," she said.
Fellows said Microsoft asked her to apply for the position as part of an executive search that also considered external candidates.
She said Vamos and herself had started the handover process and she expected to meet customers and partners over the coming weeks.
Promoted to the position of vice president, International, Online Services Group, in Seattle, Vamos spent almost three years in the local managing director position.
Vamos earned his promotion through a leadership style that built great teams of staff, according to Fellows, something she would try to emulate.
"Steve was a fantastic leader. He built a team of great people that worked well together."
I have never seen so much negative press for a new product launch like this.
There are government bodies strongly advising other orgs not to upgrade, academics and coders claiming things like 'it's the longest suicide note in history', and so on.
I personally have yet to see a positive story (I am not proactively looking for either).
I hope for MS's sake, they haven't made a huge mistake.