Business Daily (Nairobi)
Kui Kinyanjui
24 August 2007
Nearly one year after a high profile launch, Microsoft's new operating system, Vista, is yet to be accepted by Kenyan consumers and companies.
Vista is the first major release of a new operating system since the company introduced Windows XP in 2001, but it is struggling to find favour with more technology conscious users who are reluctant to adopt it.
"Vista has not been taken well in this market because of compatibility issues with other software," said Robert Allela, Country Manager for Comztek East Africa, one of three local distributors for the multinational software maker.
"Many are also having trouble meeting hardware specifications."
Industry sources said Kenyan companies, vendors and retailers are now re-investing in other IT-related products rather than spend on the software, which has had a lukewarm reception because of its need for high specification hardware.
This outlook means the company may not realise the ambitious targets set at its launch. Microsoft East Africa said it expected to sell more than five times as many copies of Windows Vista on new PCs as it did with Windows 95, and twice as many as for Windows XP.
"We anticipate solid levels of adoption among our many customers, although it is not possible to put a number to those in each of the 46 countries," said Laura Chite, PR Manager for Microsoft East Africa.
But Vista is a technology hungry package that needs high specification machines to run effectively; a major factor behind Kenyan firms shying away from the much hyped new software offering.
IT managers in major firms are wary of adopting the product because of the sluggish international reception of the product, with many saying they would refuse new computers that come with the software pre-installed.
"We have adopted a wait and see attitude. The software is still un-tested, it may contain bugs which would destabilise our existing systems," said John Lewela, an IT manager at a company that maintains 150 computers.
A new report from research house Forrester reveals that IT managers around the world harbour the same fears. The stability of Windows Vista in a large corporate environment has yet to be determined, said the report.
However, Forrester says companies should begin planning now, even if they are not already deploying Vista soon, because Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP. in a year and a half .
The software giants hopes may lie in Office 2007, which has seen a more favourable reception from users. "Given that we've had well over 1 million downloads of the Office 2007 trials worldwide since December, we anticipate Office to be very popular as well.
We believe Office 2007 will outsell Office 2003," said Ms Chite.
Forrester's report also reveals 75 per cent of information workers and over 70 per cent of IT decision-makers prefer Office 2007 to its predecessor, with 60 per cent of respondents saying the product made them more productive than Office 2003.
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