To upgrade or not to upgrade? That question is on the minds of IT professionals in large enterprises across the nation as Microsoft launches its Windows XP operating system this week. In general, reviews of the product have been favorable, though in many quarters its business-targeted version, XP Professional, is considered more of an incremental upgrade than an essential one.
Serdar Yegulalp, editor of the Windows 2000 Power Users Newsletter in Huntington, New York, says "The impression I'm getting from large enterprise IT folks is that those companies who have already made an investment in Windows 2000 are not going to be upgrading anytime soon--at least as long as Microsoft supports [Windows 2000]. There's just not enough that's terribly new or groundbreaking in XP--other than perhaps the Remote Desktop feature--to justify the time and expense of upgrading."
On the plus side, enterprises won't have to deal with the dreaded product activation anti-piracy scheme Microsoft has concocted for home users and small businesses. And there are some new features that are likely to please enterprise customers--in particular, messaging, which allows for quick and easy collaboration among employees, and the aforementioned Remote Desktop. But arrayed against these advantages is the fact of declining IT budgets in the face of a difficult economic environment.
As Windows XP launches, we spoke with some enterprises to determine their level of enthusiasm for XP and the prospects for rapid adoption of the OS. Margaret Knox, associate director of information technology services at the University of Texas at Austin reports that the University has been actively testing XP Pro in its student micro facility for the past two months. "This is by far the most reliable first version of Windows we've tested. We've logged more than 5,000 student sessions during our testing period. We're optimistic--because of those tests--that XP Pro is good enough for deployment right out of the gate. We were especially pleased with its broad hardware support and its compatibility with existing applications, including some relatively obscure ones. We believe we're a good test bed for XP Pro because of our diverse base of end users."
Sean Stecker, project manager at Orbital Sciences in Dulles, Virginia, was enthusiastic about XP Pro's stability. "This is the most stable version of Windows ever, more so even than Windows 2000. We've been participating in Microsoft's Rapid Adoption Program, which has allowed us to do significant and prolonged testing now for several months. The thing that excites us the most about XP is its applications compatibility. We run more than 600 applications across our company, and though we haven't yet tested all 600, we have tested the vast majority of them. We haven't had a single problem. This means that in places where we've had to maintain Windows 98 machines, for example, to run a legacy program, we can now switch that machine to XP Pro with confidence that those old apps will run. And we gain a standardized platform with added stability and security." Other enterprises reported to be making the switch, or at least approving XP Pro for immediate use include Wells Fargo, Boeing, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
On the other hand, many enterprises are taking a wait-and-see approach. Some IT professionals grumble that Microsoft is notorious for rolling out products prematurely, releasing a Service Pack patch in short order, often within the first six months. "Many managers are telling me they believe early adoption [of XP] puts them in the position of being software testers for Microsoft. They say they want to wait until at least after the first Service Pack release to seriously consider making a switch," Yegulalp said.
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