Summary
1. ROI with many MS products is low when simply upgrading 2. The total cost of ownership for MS updates is price prohibitive for even enterprise businesses
Analysis
I do enterprise purchasing as head of a sort of SMB cooperative. We purchase software quarterly. In considering what updates to use and which to skip we must take into account how much that upgrade will cost. Vista and Xp caused alot of problems because many of the small businesses didn't think it through. "Once bitten, twice shy" Microsoft customers are now smarter. My group's technical staff knows to use a few dummy computers to see if the new platform works with all of the expensive in house software. Proprietary software, security software, backup and database management software; these are all too important and expensive to leave to chance.
We can not help but wonder how many service packs this new operating system will need. When asked should I take in rfq's for 4th quarter for the new MS software, I was sent hundreds of "LMAO" from client members. No one in my group would even spend valuable IT time testing it before 2nd quarter 2010. Given the recession/ predepression we are in, many clients: Microsoft end users ask, if it is not broke, why try to fix it. It is imperative that limited information technology procurement budgets go to highly needed hardware and software. The one thing we do need from Microsoft is what kind of hardware will the new software need ... that way in 2 years when we upgrade we will have machines that can handle the software's demands on them.
