Sydney Water skips Vista

Sydney Water CIO Tim Catley today said the organisation would likely skip Vista and instead plan ahead to install Windows 7 on the organisation's 4,000 desktops, which are currently running Windows XP.

(Credit: Sydney Water Corporation)

Catley, who since 2005 has worked to turn around Sydney Water's IT operations, said he would likely skip Vista because the threat of Microsoft putting the screws on hardware vendors to end support for XP had dissipated.

"I think we might skip Vista and wait for 7 to come along," Catley told ZDNet.com.au after delivering a speech at Gartner's 2008 Symposium ITExpo at the Sydney Convention Centre.

"I don't think the threat of hardware vendors pulling support for [XP] is going to eventuate — because now that they've announced [Windows] 7 the heat will go out of it," he said.

Catley's comments echoed industry opinion on Vista revealed in a recent survey showing that most businesses were happy to stay with XP and wait for Windows 7, which was revealed to Microsoft developers last month.

Locally, few businesses have upgraded to Vista. While Microsoft has found a home for the unloved operating system at Australian Customs Service, few others have chosen to migrate to Vista.

Catley's view stands in direct contrast to CEO of the company that has provided Sydney Water's managed desktop service since 2006, Dell. Michael Dell last year predicted 2009 would be the year for Vista.