VARs Ready To Run With Vista But See Some Obstacles

Craig Miller, director of engineering at KIS, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Fremont, Calif., said the hardware hangup will stall adoption in the SMB sector. Nevertheless, he expects to reap between $1 million and $2 million in Vista services business next year. KIS expects to sell customers on the security, cost savings and productivity benefits of the OS, whose value far outweighs the price tag of a new PC. KIS believes its customers in the construction and legal industries will benefit from the 3-D modeling, high-end graphics and the "ability to Rolodex and flip between screens."

"Most of my clients are small and medium-sized businesses, and their budgets don't bear the ability to do a full rip-and-replace of all their desktops to be done at once. As they get rid of older systems, they'll put in the new OS," Miller said. "A lot of SMBs will be slowly deploying, but we'll have some work out of the gate because they need our help to get this done. There's a lot more in Vista than there was in XP."

There also are new features designed for SMB customers, such as the integrated Fax and Scan tool, robust Remote Installation services and a new Backup and Restore Center that offers enhanced system restore capabilities, as well as Windows Backup and Previous Versions, a feature based on the Volume Shadow Copy technology first introduced in Windows Server.

Partners predict that Vista's security benefits -- including the new BitLocker encryption for laptops, user account control mode, Internet Explorer 7's protected mode, Windows Defender and overall security service hardening -- will spur the platform's adoption by SMBs and enterprises.

Running PCs in user account mode will vastly reduce attacks without handcuffing users' ability to access key features, according to Microsoft. Vista makes it possible for end users to easily add printers and connect to network projectors and wireless networks securely without administrators' help.

To address management costs, Microsoft also implemented in Vista built-in diagnostic tools and the Network Center to help end users discover and resolve network bottleneck issues and connectivity problems. For example, the tool will automatically link users to the most secure wireless hotspot at an airport to prevent unauthorized access.

Vista's new corporate imaging management technology also will enable large customers to deploy and customize one core Vista image for various groups rather than supporting multiple images. The Windows Mobility Center, another new feature, lets users and system builders quickly configure mobile system settings such as power, display and wireless. And the Vista Sync Center makes it easier to synchronize data between PCs and servers.

Partners say Vista's new enterprise search and organize, Windows Meeting Space ad hoc collaboration, Windows Mobility Center and Vista Sync Center will be major draws. Another new desktop capability called Sidebar also provides instant desktop access to RSS feeds, Web services, gadgets and other mini-applications that allow customers to integrate Internet and corporate data on the Windows desktop.

"Starting with our managed services customers, we will be magnifying the integrated search, security and productivity features predominantly, followed by the use of gadgets for bringing line-of-business information directly into the desktop experience," said Stephen Moss, COO of NSPI, a Microsoft solution provider based in Roswell, Ga.

Getronics and Avanade are two large systems integrators working with customers as part of Microsoft's Vista TAP program. Getronics, for example, is working with one U.S. financial services giant that plans to deploy Vista on 80,000 seats.

Lee Nicholls, Getronics' Microsoft practice manager, said he Vista's new BitLocker encryption, enterprise search and offline folders, image management, mobile connections manager and network diagnostics will have enormous benefit for large corporate environments. Users can access files and folders from Windows Explorer that contain search results that can be cached locally, refreshed and used offline.

NEXT: More on Vista's benefits -- and some pitfalls.