Government Departments Wary of Vista

By Greg McNevin

March 16, 2007: While Microsoft is doing the hard sell with Vista and all its shiny new features, some federal agencies in the US are not only sceptical about upgrading, they are flatly prohibiting Vista machines from connecting to their networks.

According to CNET news.com, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) have put the kibosh on upgrading to Vista until it has been thoroughly tested for compatibility.

NIST spokesman told the online publication that the department is “temporarily not permitting computers with the Vista operating system to be connected to our networks," with the same policy applying to Microsoft Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7.

While it is by no means uncommon for business with large employee bases to hold of on deploying new software until absolute compatibility is confirmed, according to CNET, a DOT memo from January 19 claims that "there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products."

If the security problems plaguing Microsoft’s new baby wasn’t enough, it looks like Vista has also failed to “wow” at least some important government customers. The NIST and DOT are also reportedly exploring open source alternatives such as Linux, OpenOffice.org and Firefox.

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