CIOs still say 'no thanks' to Windows Vista

The latest silicon.com CIO Jury has unanimously voted that they are not ready to invest in Microsoft's latest OS Vista.

When asked if they had any plans to implement Vista, which has been subject to criticism since its launch two years ago, not one of the CIOs who replied responded positively.

The results show CIOs have not warmed to the operating system over the last year. In fact, they may have cooled even further. This time last year, the CIO Jury voted 11 to one against plans to implement Vista in 2008.

CIOs and other heads of IT still believe there is little business value in migrating from XP to Vista, especially in the current economic climate.

There is little point in the expense. We will assess Windows 7 after Service Pack 1 is released because we do not want to be hit with reliability, security and compatibility issues.

One juror highlighted his plan to stick with XP until Windows 7 reaches a stage in development when it becomes deployable - a view echoed by several CIOs.

Mike Roberts, IT Director at private hospital, The London Clinic said: "There is little point in the expense. We will assess Windows 7 after Service Pack 1 is released because we do not want to be hit with reliability, security and compatibility issues."

However, another juror is still holding out hope for Vista, with a view to rolling it out when his next OS refresh is due in 2011.

Madhushan Gokool, head of IT at Storm Models, said: "We would only start looking at Vista at our next hardware upgrade period [which is in two years]."

Perhaps the most emphatic and comprehensive response to the question of whether to deploy Vista came from Jacques René, CIO of Ascend, who said: "No, No, No!"

In this CIO Jury was:

• Florentin Albu, Manager, ICT, EUMETSAT
• Ben Booth, European and UK CTO, Ipsos
• Pete Crowe, IT Director, Fat Face
• Mark Dearnley, CIO, C&W
• Kevin Fitzpatrick, CIO, Northern Europe, Sodexo
• Martin Frick, CIO, Avis Europe
• Madhushan Gokool, IT Manager, Storm Model Management
• Iain Hepburn, IT Director, Clarke Willmott
• Jacques René, CIO, Ascend
• Jeff Roberts, Director of IT, Norton Rose
• Mike Roberts, IT Director, The London Clinic
• Richard Storey, Head of IT, Guys & St Thomas' Hospital

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