14 DAY TRIAL // At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference WinHEC 2007 in Los Angeles, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates revealed that Windows Vista has sold approximately 40 million licenses worldwide since the initial availability on January 30, 2007. After just the first months on the market, Microsoft had applauded in excess of 20 million Vista licenses sold, a milestone that validated the company's initial forecasts. Outselling Windows XP by two to one, Windows Vista is enjoying a healthy adoption rate.
Still, the corporate perspective differs on Windows Vista. AMD is among the few large profile corporate customers that has announced an immediate transition to Vista. At the beginning of May, Henri Richard, Executive Vice President, AMD Chief Sales and Marketing Officer made public company plans to roll out Vista on over 1,000 in-house desktops by the summer of 2007. The announcement concomitantly revealed that AMD had frozen a gold image of the operating system for deployment.
But there are others, such as AMD rival Intel and US computer manufacturer Dell, which failed to embrace Vista with equal enthusiasm. Both Intel and Dell will only deploy Vista internally following the availability of the first service pack for the operating system.
Security company Sophos has adopted a more intransigent position in respect to Windows Vista. Although the security developer does run Microsoft operating system in the development and testing departments, Vista complete roll out is not even in the horizon. Sophos has in fact said a firm 'no' to the Wow.
"Obviously we have some computers running Windows Vista in our development and testing departments, but we have not rolled out Windows Vista internally. We don't currently see that there would be any advantage in doing that," revealed Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos. "Companies will need to decide for themselves if Windows Vista is appropriate for rolling out inside their enterprise. I would imagine that many companies would need to upgrade their hardware to get maximum return from the software."
Graham Cluley answered additional questions regarding Windows Vista and Microsoft's security solutions for the exclusive reading pleasure of Softpedia users. You will be able to access the complete interview via this link.