Microsoft Vista Already Ratcheting Up IT Support Costs at Tech Companies

.: Acorn Networks :. Most technology companies have started preparations for supporting Vista, the new operating system by Microsoft, according to a market study by the Service Excellence Research Group. ServiceXRG surveyed more than 80 tech hardware, software and services companies on their Vista support plans. Most expect Vista preparations to cost an equivalent of 20.6 hours per IT support individual, with more than 70 percent of this time allocated to training. The analysts said the release of a major new operating system by Microsoft inevitably raises crucial support questions. Will the OS work well with existing systems and applications? How much time and effort are needed for support engineers to learn the features, functions and limitations of a complex new system. What impact with this have on support demand?
"The majority -- 60.2 percent -- of companies surveyed indicate that they have begun some formal preparations to support Vista," said Ladd Bodem, principal and co-founder, ServiceXRG.
Additional highlights from the report include:
Respondents currently preparing for Vista indicate that, on average, 66.5% of all the support cases they handle involve a product that runs on or with a Windows operating environment.The majority (63.2%) of respondents expect that the release of Vista will result in an increase in their overall support demand by an average of 13.7%.on average, the tech companies surveyed expect to devote 175 person hours updating knowledge bases with information relevant to Vista.

Helpdesk managers downbeat on Vista

.: Acorn Networks :. Just a week after the launch of Microsoft Vista to businesses, the new operating system continues to attract mixed messages on its adoption.
On Thursday, the helpdesk and support software company Axios Systems published the results of a survey that suggests only 5 percent of IT managers are aiming to deploy Vista during 2007.
The survey — of 240 IT directors and helpdesk managers of large UK and international organisations — showed that while Vista has become a major focus for some companies, others are happy to play wait and see.
Tasos Symeonides, chief executive of Axios, said the survey showed that while some companies may be attracted by the new features in Vista, they are realistic about its impact on their organisation. "The hype around Microsoft Windows Vista does not appear to have turned it into a priority for many IT directors/CIOs and helpdesk managers," he said.
There are other major issues facing IT directors and helpdesk managers in the deployment of Vista, according to Axios. One is simply a lack of suitable infrastructure for supporting the OS, which 22 percent cite as a bar to upgrading sooner. Another is the time required to train users on the new operating system, which 20 percent of users think will take too much time.
The figures contrast with data collected by ZDNet UK. According to our online survey of 1,305 IT professionals, conducted last week, 46 percent of respondents have plans to upgrade their desktop operating systems and the vast majority of those, or 41 percent of all respondents, plan to upgrade to Microsoft Vista. Fifty-one percent of those who plan to upgrade to Vista said they would begin the process in the next six months, rising to 70 percent in the next 12 months.
Companies have other pressing issues to contend with apart from Vista, according to the Axios survey. Around 31 percent of companies said IT service management would be a big focus for them in 2007, while 35 percent said they were concentrating on knowledge-management projects. Implementing VoIP was a priority for 18 percent of companies, while around 13 percent were concentrating on security software and 12 percent on business-intelligence software.