UK Schools Take Wait-and-See Approach to Vista

By NewsFactor Network | January 15, 2007

Schools in the United Kingdom are passing on an upgrade to Windows Vista and Office 2007 for now, because, according to a new report by the government’s advisory board, neither product contains new features essential to academia.

The report, presented by the British Education Communications and Technology Association (BECTA), found that although the new features of Vista add value, there are no “must have” features in the products that would justify early deployment.

“The technical, financial and organizational challenges associated with early deployment currently make this a high-risk strategy,” the report stated.

Security Concerns

While Redmond has been touting Vista security as one of the most important improvements over earlier versions of Windows, the BECTA report pointed out that the most secure version of Windows XP — used in 25,000 of the country’s schools — came almost three years after the product’s initial release.

“It seems reasonable, therefore, not to deploy Vista until it has a demonstrably stable and secure track record,” the report stated.

The study must come as somewhat of a blow to Microsoft, as the company has been pushing the idea of its latest operating system being its most secure yet. Redmond even enlisted top cryptologists at the U.S. National Security Agency to review some of the security features in Vista, which is expected to be used, eventually, by hundreds of millions of computer users around the world.

More Money

Although BECTA identified more than 170 new features in Office 2007, the group found that many of those features would be of more use to businesses than to educational institutions.

“Our objective is to make sure schools and colleges get the best value for money when investing in technology,” said Stephen Lucey, BECTA’s executive director of strategic technologies. “In terms of Vista and Office 2007, our advice to schools and colleges is…

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