Thursday, August 31, 2006

The business case for upgrading to Windows Vista

Fascinating post on Microsoft Watch today, examining the business case for/against upgrading to the next version of Microsoft Windows, the highly touted Vista.

If you ask Microsoft, Vista is going to add significant value in a number of areas, including ease of deployment, reduced support, increased security, improved reliability, and increased user efficiency. All true, and much of this is quantifiable.

However, the part the Microsoft won’t spend much (any) time discussing includes beefy hardware requirements to run it, a hefty price tag to upgrade, and the professional services required to deploy some of the really cool collaboration features included in the OS.

As a good Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, I’m going to tell you an upgrade will pay for itself, but I’d have a tough time proving it.

How do you quantify the cost savings of security improvements? It’s like spending money on better Mississippi River levees, right? It’s sunk dough until you need those levees. Even then, how do you prove the increased spend was what protected you?

User efficiency? Same thing, how do you prove it saved you money? Some of the efficiency will be offset by the user’s ability to do more things. So, yeah, they’re more efficiently turning out more/better work, but you didn’t save money there.

Microsoft (and those of us in the Partner community) is going to have its hands full quantifying a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) for both Vista and Office 2007. The “shiny new toy” effect only works for geeks, which describes very few CFOs.

It’s worth mentioning that this is not a new phenomenon. Every time a major software upgrade is released, by Microsoft or anyone else in the business, we go thru this same argument and same “prove it” exercise. As always, the proof will be partially objective, but partially a leap of faith as well.

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