Collaboration key for Microsoft upgrades

Shared services is stimulus for latest versions

Less than a fortnight after their launches, Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 are attracting a crowd of supporters with many experts seeing changes to collaborative processes as an impetus for upgrading.

After one of the largest beta-testing programmes ever, Microsoft has a large collection of early adopters for its latest software including Arsenal Football Club, defence consultancy Qinetiq and the London Borough of Newham. Many said they planned to use search, workflow and usability enhancements as the platform for a fresh approach to sharing information.

“The key thing we like is the ability to integrate all these applications,” said Amjed Farooq, head of business improvement at UK defence technology firm Qinetiq. “If I want to find some information I want to be able to highlight a phrase and find out whether we know anything about that subject internally and, if not, I can go externally. Scientists love the ability to set up communities where they can interact with each other.”

Gavin Williams, director of services company Avanade, said presence detection via SharePoint at the back end will be a powerful technology for locating others and knowing how best to contact them.

“This launch is happening at the window of time when customers are reaching the end of their previous refresh cycles and want to know what they can achieve next,” he said. “The business case is to find people when they are contactable and quite soon presence detection will be as ubiquitous as email is today.”

Accenture security partner Stuart Okin agreed. “Most of the conversations I’ve had with customers have been around collaboration and presence awareness, changing processes such as call-centre routing through voice-over-IP and messaging through tools such as Groove,” he said.

The London Borough of Newham said new usability and collaborative elements would help its push to let staff work from home and was resulting in a 30 percent reduction in floor space required.

“Work should be a thing you do rather than a place you go,” said Geoff Connell, Newham services director. “We’re seeing improved morale and fewer sick days.”

Qinetiq’s Farooq agreed. “Why should you have to sit in an office to be productive?” he asked.

Hardware and software partners are lining up behind Microsoft. Although consumers will not see Vista widely pre-installed on PCs until 30 January, Dell has said it will install the operating system image on new PCs when buyers who have a subscription agreement with Microsoft, send the image to the PC giant. Dell will also provide services designed to smooth the upgrade cycle to Vista and the latest versions of Office and Exchange.

Storage giant EMC will help customers to support new workflow processes based on the latest Microsoft software through its EMC Global Services consulting division.

Trend Micro said Vista-ready versions of its security products are available now. However, just because Vista is a new system and includes various protection tools does not mean it will be immune to security threats, warned another security firm, Sophos. Three of the top 10 threats -- Stratio-Zip, Netsky-D and MyDoom-O – cover almost 40 percent of all current malware threats and can attack Vista, according to Sophos researchers.

Hyperion said its System 9 Smart Space business intelligence feature will include gadgets that work with Vista. Vista Gadgets are small applications that sit in the Sidebar home page. Customers like UMB Bank are customising the gadgets that also take advantage of the new Aero 3D user interface.

UGS will integrate its Teamcenter product lifecycle management program with Vista and Office.