Lora Bentley spoke with Benjamin Gray, an IT infrastructure and operations analyst with Forrester Research.

Bentley: Windows Vista's reception has been lukewarm at best so far, yet your research indicates that companies are better served if they go ahead and migrate to Vista rather than stick with XP or move to other alternative OSs. Why not stick with XP if it works best for your company?
Gray: Forrester has recommended that companies deploy Windows Vista rather than skipping it entirely and going straight to Windows 7 for a number of reasons, but we don’t recommend moving away from Windows XP simply for the sake of upgrading without any tangible business benefits. That’s not to imply that there aren’t any with Windows Vista, but we have definitely worked with a number of organizations that simply couldn’t justify the upgrade, and for these organizations Windows XP clearly makes the most sense.

Bentley: Some have said that the release of Vista seems to be change for change's sake rather than change for the sake of the benefits the new technology brings. How do you respond to that? If you're Microsoft, why even move to release a new OS when XP is so stable and so well-received?
Gray: In speaking with desktop operations folks on a daily basis, the general consensus I’ve heard is that there are some important security, management, and user experience improvements that Windows Vista actually delivers on. However, they’ve found that it’s difficult to make the business case to their C-level executives who are convinced that deploying Windows Vista is a risky bet, given all of the reaction it’s garnered in the marketplace thus far. I think Microsoft has learned a lot from its experiences and is working hard to incorporate these into the development cycle of Windows 7. But at the end of the day, Windows 7 will be very similar to Windows Vista so the problems that organizations are experiencing with the migration to Vista now will recur when Windows 7 is ready — which is why we’ve been recommending that companies gear up for Vista sooner rather than later.

Microsoft will force organizations to move away from Windows XP eventually. But whether firms turn to Windows Vista or Windows 7 next, it’s still a win-win situation for Microsoft. What Microsoft needs to do is to continue to listen closely to its customers and ecosystem partners and remain flexible around support lifecycles. But even more importantly, it needs to continue to release tools that will help organizations with their inevitable migrations and be more forthcoming with information on what to expect and what not to expect with Windows 7.

Bentley: If the change to Windows Vista from XP is inevitable, how can companies make the transition smoothly?
Gray: Forrester strongly recommends that companies continue to standardize on Windows XP as they fully test for application and hardware compatibility with Windows Vista. Tie in the operating system migration with the natural PC refresh cycle of the business to help mitigate these hardware compatibility challenges. Start the deployments out small with 20 to 50 users and evaluate what’s working and what’s not after 10 hours, 10 days, and 10 weeks of use. Assuming no major kinks, ramp the deployments up with a special focus on laptop users if you’re planning on turning on BitLocker encryption, which is built into Windows Vista Enterprise. And offer training materials and information resources to your users, particularly if you’re making the upgrade to Office 2007 as well.