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NIST, which does research and sets standards for things like cryptography for government use, is among several federal agencies that have put a moratorium on the use of Vista. The agencies are taking some time to make sure that the new Microsoft operating system meets their needs.
It is not unusual that large organizations aren't rushing to install major software updates. These organizations tend to do a lot of testing before upgrading. The same happened when Microsoft released Windows XP, and again with Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. Microsoft widely released Vista in late January.
Simon Szykman, chief information officer at NIST, was slightly irked by some of the media reports on his agency's move, which painted the ban as a major slap in Microsoft's face. In fact, Szykman said, this is business as usual. Ultimately, NIST expects many of its PCs will run Vista. Still, Microsoft has predicted a swift adoption of Vista by businesses.
NIST, based in Gaithersburg, Md., employs about 2,900 people and has an additional group of about 1,800 visiting researchers who complement the staff. Szykman spoke with CNET News.com about his organization's plans for Vista.
Q: What is your current position on Windows Vista?
Szykman: Our policy states that we're not allowing users to install or deploy Windows Vista for the time being. We consider this to be an interim policy to give us the time to do the adequate testing of Vista before we deploy it. We don't expect to have any obstacles that would prevent us from eventually deploying Vista.
Does the same go for Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7?
Szykman: For Office 2007, there is no policy to prevent individual users from purchasing and installing it, but we are not proactively rolling it out. On the issue of Internet Explorer 7, we have advised users not to upgrade to IE7 and are blocking downloads and automatic updates of IE7, again as an interim measure pending interoperability and compatibility testing. It is known that not all Web-based applications that run under IE 6 will function under IE 7, so we need to ensure that our critical business applications work, or are updated if initially they don't work, before deploying it internally.
How long does this process to test typically take?
Szykman: That is hard to say in advance. It can take several months to do all of the various types of testing that are needed. And also depending on what happens, it may be necessary to wait for Microsoft to issue fixes or updates before it is functional enough to use operationally.
What kind of things do you look for?
Szykman: We look at a variety of issues. We look at interoperability testing, whether Vista works well with our existing networks and other machines on the network. We look at application testing, to make sure that the critical business applications that we have will actually run under Vista. We look at the ability for us to adequately secure machines that are running Vista.
We also need to ensure, in addition to the applications, that there are drivers available for legacy equipment that we already have in place. We also need to ensure adequate training of not only the user community but our CIO staff so that we're prepared to respond to various troubleshooting and help requests, and the people here are also trained to do the deployment.
These are the kinds of issues that we need to be concerned with. It's not just having some music-ripping software on a computer that stops working in case of incompatibilities. We have business-critical applications, and if those stop working it gets in the way of doing our job.
Is there anything in particular in Vista that you like?
Szykman: The encryption capabilities that are built into Vista are potentially useful from the perspective of federal government mandates. It is hard to say until we've adequately looked into its functionality and effectiveness, but there is currently a mandate for encryption of certain types of information and the use of encryption on laptops, so that's potentially something that will be helpful.
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ban, chief information officer, agency, CIO, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
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What I've been reading around the web is to simply wait until service pack 1 is released, then most of the hardware driver issues should be delt with.
Yes, I understand that there are going to be issues for a while, but don't pretend like it was some big secret.
Remember, businesses aren't some uber-leet flake sitting at home having to worry only about one desktop system.
businesses where security is the most important issue. A Beta
only gives you a look at what the software SHOULD be like not
necessarily what it WILL be like. To ensure that software is safe
for widespread deployment the final release needs to be
evaluated.
And as far as IE7 goes I would dump it altogether until MS
makes it completely W3C compliant. Because right now you can
design an HTML 4.01 site with CSS that is completely W3C
compliant and it will display correctly in all the major browsers
except IE on a windows PC.
important assets we have, second only to Democracy. Compared to
most countries, percentage wise, we spend very little on the
Military. I agree with your opinion about open source and the
Military is already using forms of Linux on some of their
computers. However after that I disagree with you. The war we are
currently involved in is anything but useless and the outcome will
shape the way the world looks in the future. This war was well on
its way before we became involved.
Most religions grow up and stop trying to take over the world. Islam has not. Most of the wars on the planet involve Moslems as the aggressors, sometimes against other Moslem groups.
Fight, die, be enslaved, or convert to a religion that makes that Phelps group look like laid back pot smokers.
thing barely has the power to run XP far less Vista so I figure an
upgrade (like our XP upgrade was) is at least 2 years down the
road.
Do you think the NIST rolls those products directly into production the minute they're released?
Why don't you also ask him if "it makes sense to upgrade to RHEL5/Oracle 10g/Acrobat 8.0 when RHEL4/Oracle 9/Acrobat 7.0 are not broken."
It's painfully obvious that you're trying to manufacture a story around Vista. In our environment, we're allowing some users to deploy IE7, Office 2007 and Vista, but we're warning them that our testing is still underway (our environment is not locked down in nature) so compatiblity is not guaranteed. Here's another newsflash: we haven't upgraded everyone from Firefox 1.5 to 2.0 yet, either. You read correctly -- we're even TESTING a Firefox release before deploying it!!! We must be nuts, right?
What's newsworthy about an IT organization acting reponsibly by testing new products thoroughly before deploying them? Aside from an obvious attempt to create controversy where there is none, why treat Vista any differently than anything else in the marketplace?
I can see the headlines already for March, 2008: "Some customers have STILL not deployed Vista."
-Mister Winky
Seriously. Majority of the masses HATE Microsoft (well... those that actually care... or... something). Post an article with a drama heading about people banning Vista and you'll have readers flock to the website like ants at a picnic on a cake.
Nobody's really gonna care about testing and incompatibility issues with open source software. I mean...well...it's free.
All they do is to attract more visitors by MS Bashing.
Seems C|NET is try to popularise themselves by talking what MS bashers wanna hear. publicity through spreading -ve. ***too BAD***
I see C|NET grabs a lot of news from the web...
did any of us got to see.. this one ...
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.indianpad.com/view/43434" target="_newWindow">http://www.indianpad.com/view/43434</a>
or
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3667201" target="_newWindow">http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3667201</a>
wake up guys..
be a Journo.. and not B'jorno ;-)
But what if there happens to be no currently available target or source of inspiration? But the gnomes of Wall Street are making noises that perhaps this industry giant has hit their inevitable wall? Was the market asking for Vista? Of course not. In fact, a remarkable number of businesses are still living with Windwos 2k, sp4 with no immediate plans to move to XP. That says a lot! So Vista is an effort to bring something that seems fresh even if it isn't, and rally the troops as well as give the equipment manufacturers something new to sell. The initial take off for this strategy appears to be very bumpy.
All organizations that grow into institutional status eventually crest the top of the curve and start down the back side. Institutionalized companies stop looking outside themselves and turn inward. They lose their desire and ability to serve real market needs and can only focus on serving themselves. I think the most exciting question our industry should be seeking answers for now is what and who will be next? It probably won't be Microsoft. There are limits to how far a company can go when it is completely lacking the inventor gene, and they have gone impressively far in spite of that fact. But they are probably coming to the end of their reign.
There's no question that OSes have become largely commodotized these days. There are several mature options and you can do most anything you want on any of them (within reason -- they all have strengths and weaknesses). An OS is just a baseline platform, a means to tie people into more profitable product lines offered by OS vendors be it support contracts, fancy hardware, software & consulting, etc.
MS has not been a growth company for 5+ years. They're more like an oil company or a telco: slow to move on new initiatives, but big enough to recover when the fall behind.
MS will likely never again enjoy the near lock on personal computing that the enjoyed a few years ago, especially as computing spreads throughout developing nations who care less about foreign brands and intellectual property. That said, people have been predicting MS' demise for a decade now and they've really not gone anywhere.
Look at it this way: even if Apple and all the Linux distros combined could take 5% of MS' OS market share per year (a highly aggressive, probably unlikely scenario), MS would still be the majority player in the OS market for another decade or more.
Never underestimate the power of corporate cash in large quantities. ;)
-Mister Winky
Firefox is more secure, has improved usability, and is easier to learn (it looks more like IE6 than IE7 does :P).
What does Vista have to offer that W2K and XP don't (besides the eye candy). Before they upgrade to Vista they would have to upgrade their desktops hardware in order to support it. Vista would also have to be hardened to meet federal standards. There is no way they would install a shrink wrapped version of the product. Many of the features would need to be locked down to make it acceptable for use.
We would pay ten times as much for Linux up front as we would for Windows and it would still be a bargain.