Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
June 17, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM U.S./ET (GMT-4)
Larry Bonfante, CIO of the U.S. Tennis Association, will discuss the skills and approaches that your rising IT leaders must learn to be effective in an executive capacity.
How to Handle Your New CEO: Managing Turnover at the Top
June 18, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)
Turbulent times have increased turnover at the top. Find out what Council CIOs have done to "break in" new CEOs—build relationships, set expectations, educate on the role of IT.
Mid-Market CIO Panel: Tips and Techniques for Improving Vendor Relationships
July 15, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)
We'll highlight relationship priorities and best practices identified in a Council study, and we'll interact with a CIO panel on the approaches they've used to improve strategic vendor partnerships.
Executive Competencies Assessment Tool
Assess Your Business Leadership Skills with the Council's new benchmarking tool. Rate yourself in change leadership, strategy, customer focus and more.
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July 15, 2006 — CIO —
Microsoft’s first major operating system upgrade in five years, Windows Vista, is expected to hit the retail shelves in January.
Originally scheduled for 2003, Vista’s release date was pushed back many times due to development delays. And the delays have created openings for the growth of competitors, such as Apple on the desktop and Linux on the server. But Microsoft’s market share remains overwhelming. Like it or not, Vista will eventually become Microsoft’s default OS. So the question is not whether you’ll be making the switch to Vista, but when.
In fact, if your company has a volume licensing agreement with Microsoft, you’ll have a chance to upgrade to the client version of Vista as early as November, when the operating system will be shipped to computer manufacturers and other large customers. (The server version of Vista, still nicknamed Longhorn, isn’t scheduled to ship until 2007.)
Still, there are good reasons why IT managers are saying "wait and see." Upgrades are time-consuming and expensive, requiring lots of testing, training and support. Then there’s the hardware. Vista’s almost certainly not going to run well on older machines.
"IT managers probably won’t make the investment [in upgrading] until after Vista has been on the market for awhile," says Jim Michael, secretary of the board of directors of Share, an IBM users’ group with more than 2,000 member companies representing a majority of the Fortune 500. "You may not see widespread enterprise deployment until after the first service pack comes out." And that could be as much as a year after Vista first ships.
But you’d better begin planning now. Once the OS is widely available, end users (like your CEO) will start asking about it. It will begin showing up on new desktops and laptops. And, if there’s a major security attack aimed at legacy Windows XP systems, you could find yourself under very serious pressure to upgrade fast.
Vista offers some enticing features for CIOs. Perhaps primary among them are its numerous security enhancements. "This is an operating system that was built and architected in the age of the Internet," says Michael Gartenberg, VP and research director for JupiterResearch. In contrast to Windows XP, Vista will be much more resistant to Internet-based attacks, he says.
Vista also offers authentication via smart cards in addition to user name and password checking, provides more nuanced user account restrictions and offers strong, hardware-based encryption, which can protect documents when an employee’s laptop is stolen. It will also make it easier for developers to customize their own authentication strategies with biometrics and tokens.