Not Yet On Vista SP 1

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 to 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 happy with it.

LARRY HOOPER Can be reached via e-mail.

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

A lot of solution providers out there make a lot of money off 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 near 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 clients' sites for the reason that the current big-brother-based, home- market-aimed Vista is not a business operating system of any caliber."

Scott Oviatt at Information Systems Consulting in Palmer, Ark., says, "To roll out Vista to an unsuspecting corporate environment will be an unmitigated disaster. 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 two 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?
E-mail me at lrhooper@everythingchannel.com.

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