Is Vista SP1 Ready For Business?

Now that Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 is vying with American Idol as the dominant topic of discussion on the Internet, it's time to break that discussion down into the two Vista SP1 streams that matter, the consumer market and the business market.

At this point, the consumer Vista SP1 discussion is almost moot. Hardware and drivers are catching up Vista SP1 and consumers who buy new PCs will get it whether they like it or not. In fact, on discussion boards across the Web, it appears as if the consumers who are using Vista SP1 on the right hardware are almost happy with it. Well, some of them are.

LARRY HOOPER Can be reached via e-mail.

But for me, the real discussion is on the business side. What are businesses with thousands of existing PCs to do? They are not likely to replace them all in one fell swoop to upgrade to a new operating system that has not yet proved itself. That is certain.

So when Vista SP1 came, I asked solution providers whether they would start recommending Vista to their customers. Obviously with question that loaded, I expected some exuberant responses from both sides of the fence.

A lot of solution providers out there make a lot of money off of the Microsoft ecosystem and are quick to defend the Redmond giant. Still others are fervent supporters of Microsoft technology, as fervent as those ever-present anti-Microsoft voices out there.

What I didn't expect was a clear, resounding, almost unanimous response. But I got. It, and the answer is, for now, at least, "no."

Daniel Renner, president of Los Angeles Computerhelp, said he will do his best to "ban Vista from my client's sites for the reason that the current big-brother-based, home market-aimed Vista IS NOT a business operating system of any caliber."

Rolling out Vista to an unsuspecting corporate environment would be "an unmitigated disaster," said Scott Oviatt at Information Systems Consulting in Palmer, AK. The result?: "Flooded help desk calls, frustrated users, flustered IT crews and complete loss of productivity as the end user tries to figure out what they are looking at, and why is it always crashing."

Many other readers added their 2 cents to the mix, but the consensus was that Vista SP1 was still not ready for business.

What's your take? Should businesses hold out for XP SP3 or take the plunge with Vista SP1?