Midmarket Still Mostly Cool to Windows Vista

Some Give Vista Second Look

Skipping Vista may be the rule in the mid-market, but there are exceptions. Michael Spears, CIO for the NCCI (National Council on Compensation Insurance), has recently given Vista a second look.

After upgrading to Office 2007 from Office 2003 and switching from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook/Exchange for the council's 950 employees last year, Spears took some time to rethink his original decision to pass on Vista.

Spears says he's not a Vista lover and ultimately wants to get to Windows 7, but he worries about waning support for XP and views Vista as a good bridge.

"Although any benefits from Vista will not be major, the worst case scenario for me would be to have to get to a new OS, presumably Windows 7, in a short period of time," Spears says.

He says this would happen if Microsoft rolls out Windows 7, then soon after announces that it will no longer be supporting XP.

"The switch to Vista [32-bit] will not be a big deal and will likely let us work through a number of driver compatibility issues and that sort of thing," he says. "In essence, this will make our ultimate conversion to Windows 7 a little easier and certainly let us take the time to watch it mature instead of being forced to move off of XP."