This column has often championed the customer against the might of the manufacturer. It’s only when customers – both network administrators and end-users – speak up that they realise they’re not alone.

More than that, customers can come to the aid of manufacturers. If it hadn’t been for a few bloody-minded buyers uploading photos of the charred remains of their notebooks to the internet, Sony would still be selling its battery-cum-firelighters to all and sundry, while Dell, Apple and Fujitsu would be left to fight off atrocious viral PR by themselves.

But while I believe the customer is king, I do not adhere to the adage that the customer is always right. This is especially true of uneducated end-users. So we should be wary when Dell chief technology officer Kevin Kettler, talks up the prospects of Microsoft Vista in the office as a result of the “consumerisation” of enterprise IT. Kettler’s theory is that consumers will be so bowled over by Vista on their home PCs that they will demand their work computers be upgraded.

The lazy riposte to this argument is that Kettler is either fooling himself or trying to fool his customers. After all, we’re talking about end-users here. These are the kind of people who get their home computers fixed at PC World. So intent are they on doing the wrong thing that consumer-champion magazine Which? felt it necessary to state: “Don’t rely on PC World to repair your PC”.

Thank you, Which? I’ll file that hot tip alongside the likes of “Don’t run with scissors” and “Avoid sawing off both legs during a thunderstorm”.

But Kettler does have a point. Consumer pressure to buy the latest thing is a very real problem. In fact, it’s a constant annoyance for a great many IT staff. Your average Joe buys himself a new inkjet printer for his kids at the weekend and by Monday he’s sending out memos asking why the company is “wasting money” on “expensive” colour lasers.

Also consider how consumer fads force many enterprises to keep reinventing their security systems; think podslurping, USB Flash drives and DVD writers.

Dammit, that Kettler fellow is right after all. The first time someone buys a new home computer running Windows Vista, he will feel shortchanged at work. It doesn’t matter that none of the entertainment features and Aero interface cosmetics will help him enter numbers into a spreadsheet, this new Vista thing rocks! Gotta get it at work too!

I distinctly remember these emotions the day I first switched my home PC to Windows 95. However, I also remember a week later wishing I could downgrade after I noticed my Windows 3.11 office computer could still open Word without the hard disk chugging away for half a minute.

I may be preaching to the converted here, but IT managers must be ready to resist users’ demands to upgrade to Vista as soon as it becomes available. By all means start planning, but do not let yourself get pushed into it.