Work PCs to miss out on key Vista features

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James Bannan22 November 2006, 10:44 AM

Vista Premium and Ultimate have some nice features, but Microsoft's most profitable customers -- organisations with hundreds of Windows licences -- will miss out on some of the best bits.


Volume licence users of Windows will be looking eagerly at the opportunity to upgrade to Vista. But while Business or Enterprise versions might make sense from a deployment and management perspective, they don't include features which you know corporate and education users will want, like DVD Maker.

Working in a school, I know how popular creative applications are for both teachers and students, so I assumed that we’d simply have to bite the financial bullet and look at rolling out Vista Ultimate as our Volume SOE.

Wrong. It seems that only the Business and Enterprise editions are available for Volume License customers.

This left me in the position of either having to tell staff that they couldn’t use the more interesting new features of Vista (the bits they are actually looking forward to), or face the prospect of purchasing licenses for individual Home Premium or Ultimate machines.

The situation was really looking like a total pain, so I got in touch with Microsoft for clarification, and a spokesperson got back to me today.

APC: “Can you please confirm that Windows Vista Enterprise and Windows Vista Business are the only editions available for volume licensing?”

Microsoft: “Windows Vista Business is the edition that is available to all volume license customers, and volume license customers with Software Assurance [SA] agreements also receive exclusive rights to use Windows Vista Enterprise.

For customers with SA agreements, we have also provided access to use Windows Vista Ultimate for specific scenarios, but we recommend that these customers standardise on Windows Vista Enterprise as it is easier to deploy and manage and is best suited for business environments.”

APC: “What happens when a volume licensing customer requires a particular feature which is only available in the retail version? For example, a user wants to be able to make DVDs (Windows Vista’s DVD Maker is not available in either of the business editions.)”

Microsoft: “We recognise that some enterprises may want the use of certain consumer-oriented features for certain unique settings, such as for conference rooms or for media-related labs, etc.

Customers with SA agreements can take advantage of Windows Vista Ultimate to address these special cases.

Non SA customers can purchase a PC with Windows Vista Ultimate pre-installed from their OEM, they can purchase retail licenses to upgrade existing machines, or they can look into one of the many third-party applications that will be part of the Windows Vista ecosystem to meet their needs.

Because of the superior manageability and deployment functionality of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise, we recommend that organisations standardise on either of these versions of Windows Vista.”

So I suppose it’s not all bad news. As an organisation you do have to purchase Software Assurance to get the flexibility to use Vista Ultimate in those “unique settings” so you’re looking at an extra cost per unit there.

Businesses are going to have to assess whether the extra cost is worth the benefit – both of being able to upgrade to Vista Enterprise and get Ultimate when needed, versus simply purchasing Ultimate should the need arise.

From my perspective, we are going down the Software Assurance path, but we’re also taking part in a School’s Agreement with Microsoft, which I believe is worked out between Microsoft and the Department of Education, which enables us to install any version of Vista regardless of the OEM operating system purchased.

So we can upgrade an XP Professional machine to Vista Ultimate mid-cycle without causing any licensing problems.

This will actually be of massive benefit in the XP-Vista migration, as we can purchase XP machines at the start of the year, without having to rush to get a Vista-based SOE ready, and then simply upgrade to Vista during the year on a schedule of our choosing.

Microsoft is right in their assessment of the situation though – there’s really no call to make any other versions of Vista available for volume licensing because it’s simply not appropriate.

Home Basic and Premium aren’t geared towards operating in a business environment and Ultimate is, to be honest, overkill.

Although it will be a pain to have to support some disparate machines running Ultimate, mainly because they won’t have KMS activation keys, it’s a better situation than needing to purchase third-party products to provide functionality which is not available in Business/Enterprise, but which is available in the other versions.

I think I’ll be working even harder next year….sigh.


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tin:

Why do so many recommend Macs over Windows? Sure it's more stable and all, but if you're going to be making changes, why wouldn't you go Linux or FreeBSD?

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raindog:

Nix boxes are making inroads in the corporate space particularly for web applications, rock solid DVRs, firewalls and gateways, but dont kid yourself that there is any total replacement option for Microsoft. Exchange server / Outlook and Office are the predominant standards in the corporate workspace and as troublesome at these are you'd be very brave to suggest any alternatives. But given Microsoft's lack of innovation, exhorbitant pricing and general arrogance towards their consumers from every angle of Vista policies, the release is looking very much on the nose. There has never been a better opportunity for alternative products to make inroads, the question is can they get their collective acts together?

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raindog:

So what your saying Tin is a smooth sided plastic carton, a cool as menu bar and a grabload of crippleware doesn't impresss you? Believe me your not alone with those thoughts.

Those whacky guys at Redmond probably don't even see the utter contempt they are showing to every sector of their market.

If you looked hard enough you could probably find an equivalent for DVD maker, then again you'd be much better off installing a decent DVD creation app.

so yeah what are those Vista benefits again?



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amavida:

There's the rub.

Instead of recommending against M$ IT people keep mum & are kept ever more 'busy' with each new release of Windows.

If organisations switched to Mac's the little IT feifdoms would vanish.. and we can't have _that_ now can we fella's hmmm ?

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James Bannan:

Oddly enough, there isn't a global conspiracy to keep Macs out of the workplace.  If Apple were able to offer Microsoft-centric business IT staff a way to reduce support costs and streamline system management then they (we) would be extremely interested.

But such a proposal doesn't seem forthcoming... 

Bear in mind, business decisions are made on cost and day-to-day vs long-term practicality, not emotive I-hate-this-product rants.   Apple isn't competitive in the business sphere, and that's all there is to it. Neither do they try to be, so where's the argument?  You love Macs therefore they MUST be the best for ANY situation, and ALWAYS the first choice over a Windows-based PC?  Get real.



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James Bannan:

Actually, it's not so much that Macs are irrelevent in the workplace, but OSX definitely is.  And Macs by extension of that.

Initial costs aside, it simply takes more time and effort to manage 20 Macs than it does to manage 20 Windows-based machines.  With Windows you have endless options for deployment and management through the lifecycle of the machine, which translates into fewer support hours and lower support costs. 

Amplify that out across 50, 100 or 1000+ workstations, and the business case for avoiding Macs mounts up.

This is one of the things Mac users tend to overlook - they compare Mac vs PC (or Windows vs OSX) in isolation.  One machine next to another.  That's all well and good when discussing the absolute merits of particular features or examining what would make a good home PC, but as soon as you look at corporate IT it's a completely different ballgame.  And Macs just don't have the supporting infrastructure - client-side or server-side.  Windows does.  And in business it's just that simple - you don't make decisions with far-reaching consequences just because you're anti-Microsoft.

Well, some IT managers do, but they don't last long.