Top OEMs Launch Vista PCs, Tools For Businesses

Microsoft this week announced exclusive availability of business-focused versions of Vista -- Vista Business, Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate -- to corporate customers that have volume licenses.

Jumping on the Vista launch this week, Dell said Thursday that customers with volume licensing agreements can send their global Windows Vista image to Dell for factory installs using the standard imaging service. One of the key new features in Vista is the ability to create and support one image across an enterprise to reduce management costs.

Other OEMs, including Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard, this week unveiled Vista tools and services for business customers.

Though Thursday's Vista release means little to OEMs and system builders because they can't ship PCs preloaded with Vista until Jan. 30, it may give large PC makers a head start with their enterprise customers, some solution providers say. Still, few partners expect to see much business adoption before the software becomes generally available late in January. And others note that system builders will get their copies in time to prepare for the Jan. 30 launch date.

Jeff Di Bella, vice president of sales at AOpen Center, Gaithersburg, Md., said Microsoft also will make Vista available to system builders through distribution very soon. "I expect product to ship within the next few weeks. That will give me almost one month to ramp up inventory," Di Bella said, noting that he won't roll out Vista PCs until Jan. 30.

System builders took issue with Microsoft staggered release of Vista -- the business versions in late November and the consumer versions in late January -- because it meant they would miss the busy holiday PC selling season. Yet they said they don't think availability of the code to enterprise customers gives top OEMs an unfair advantage over system builders.

"You're worried about making year-end sales and Christmas holidays, and you're going to do a large-scale migration to a new operating system prone to problems? You'd have to be nuts," said Glen Coffield, presdient of Cheap Guys, Orlando, Fla. "There's no way, if I was a business [customer], would I install Vista now."

As system builders ramp up for the January Vista release, OEMs like Lenovo and HP took the wraps off Vista PCs, tools and services that will provide opportunities for some Microsoft partners, such as resellers and licensing experts.

On Thursday, Lenovo announced the integration of new ThinkVantage Technologies with Windows Vista Enterprise. At a press conference in New York before the Thursday Vista launch, Deepak Advani, chief marketing officer at Lenovo, unveiled Lenovo's Rescue and Recovery ThinkVantage Tools (TVT), designed to extend the new system recovery, wireless connectivity and security features in Vista.

The tools, slated to be available on Lenovo systems beginning Dec. 4, will extend automated wireless connectivity capabilities of Vista to wired and broadband networks, Advani told CRN in a brief interview at the press conference. The launch of the Vista Enterprise, Business and Ultimate versions will jump-start the PC sales cycle for computer makers and resellers, Advani said, adding that the availability of Lenovo's Vista system with TVT gives channel partners additional opportunities to add value to Vista systems.

"There are definitely channel opportunities," Advani said. "Vista is going to drive a big PC refresh."

HP announced Thursday that all of its business PCs, notebooks and workstations are now available in Vista Premium-Ready configurations, and the company plans to provide business customers with free or low-cost Vista and Office 2007 upgrades.

HP said it has optimized its enterprise management software to support new features in Vista, and in December, the company plans to release new software drivers for Vista -- namely the HP Universal Print Driver, which eliminates the need to perform individual driver installations.

VARs expressed optimism about the new PC sales prospects that Vista will bring. For example, a recent study conducted by Softchoice, a major U.S. reseller, found that the vast majority of PCs in use today aren't equipped for Vista's hefty hardware requirements.

Based on inventory data of more than 110,000 PCs from about 500 corporate customers, the Softchoice study found that 50 percent of PCs can't handle Vista's minimum requirements, and half of those PCs need to be replaced to run Vista. What's more, about 95 percent of those PCs aren't equipped for Vista Premium, the study said.

Microsoft said there will be plenty of opportunities for partners to sell add-on Vista products and services basd on an estimated availability of 70 million Vista-capable PCs in the market by the end of 2006 and "several hundred million" Vista PCs" in the market by the end of 2007.

Microsoft solution providers that specialize in licensing software also got the green light this week. Cincinnati-based PCMS IT Advisor, for one, is expecting a nice lift out of the gate.

Matt Scherocman, a director at PCMS IT Advisor, said small and midsize businesses will benefit from new Vista features such as instant search, Windows backup and restore, the Mobility Center and the Image-X corporate imaging tool.

Partners, administrators and customers, Scherocman added, also will benefit from new security features such as the encrypted file system, antispyware, user account control, configurable firewall, improved management and new GUI that will boost productivity.

Although there's little doubt that Vista will drive a strong PC refresh cycle, most industry analysts believe adoption will be gradual and based on corporate PC refresh policies. According to a recent survey by Forrester Research, 34 percent of PC decision-makers in enterprises will start Vista deployments within one year after its release. However, most customers running Windows XP -- nearly two-thirds of those surveyed -- will wait to upgrade until they are ready to support one operating system, Forrester said.

One major system builder, Amax Information Systems, plans to announce two Vista-Ready systems based on Intel vPro technology within days, but they won't ship until the end of January. Amax has been testing Vista on systems and educating customers about its benefits.

"As a long-awaited upgrade to Windows XP, the market reception to Windows Vista seems to be quite positive. In fact, we already have customers planning to purchase systems with Vista installed, as soon as it is available," said James Huang, marketing specialist at Amax, San Jose, Calif. "We are getting ready to launch Vista when it is [broadly] available to the channel."