KANSAS CITY, Mo. -
"We will not be in any big hurry to deploy Microsoft Vista," said Gordon Gregory, vice president, technology at $320-million Mazuma CU here.
Charlie Lai, CIO at the $1.4-billion Fairwinds CU in Orlando, Fla., agreed: "The geek in me is excited about any new major OS launch and the potential it brings." However, "as CIO, my professional stance is wait-and-see. The product is just too new."
So goes the story for most corporations-and consumers-who apparently are waiting to upgrade after their current systems die. After Vista's Feb. 1 release, early sales are sluggish, compared to previous Microsoft operating system releases. And people waited longer in line to buy the recent releases of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii than to get a new Vista, according to many reports.
"We will hold off on Vista completely, until it is mandated by our data processor, and they can support it," added Ray Ward, CEO at $31-million Kent County CU in Grand Rapids, Mich.
But data processing vendors aren't exactly tripping over themselves to get going with Vista, either (see related story, page 11).
"Our clients' adoption rate and timing will ultimately drive our deployment strategy and timing," said Scott Hansen, senior vice president, strategic marketing and business development at Harland Financial Solutions.
Waiting For Vista To 'Mature'
Consumers CU in Oshtemo, Mich., will "avoid" the new operating system on staff PCs this year, according to Scott Sylvester, vice president, technology at the $200-million CU.
Why? "The graphics are supposed to be much better, but I believe third-party software will be slow to be compatible," Sylvester said.
Indeed, Windows Vista won't jibe with the core system at People First CU in Allentown, Penn, said Susan Phillips Vice President/CIO at the $250-million CU.
Vista is still in its infancy, explained Steve Mooney, VP-information services operations at the $1.5-billion Tinker FCU at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, which will hold off on upgrading.
Most Microsoft operating systems don't "truly mature" for 18 months, said Mooney. "We will allow Vista to mature and allow Microsoft to go through a series of service packs, and then we will move to it. It's a classic situation where we want to be on the leading edge and not the bleeding edge."
Service pack upgrades over time help alleviate conflicts between third-party applications, agreed Phillips.
When the time comes to upgrade-anywhere from six months to two years after service packs are available and existing systems have outlived their usefulness-credit unions look forward to seeing whether Vista is as pumped up as Microsoft claims.
"I'm cautiously optimistic, based on the new security features," said Bill Burrows, chief information officer at $575-million EECU in Fort Worth, Texas.
Vista's new malware controls could offer phishers a run for their money, and CUs may have an easier time maintaining security even when employees customize software installations, Burrows said.
Windows BitLocker looks good to People First CU, said Phillips. BitLocker is available in two of the five Vista editions and can encrypt a hard drive as well as verify the integrity of the data before it is decrypted.
Many CUs said that upgrading to Vista won't mean upgrading the budget. "We purchase the operating system at the time of PC acquisition and do not upgrade existing machines," Phillips said. "As the upgrade to Vista will be performed as a part of our normal PC lifecycle, it should not increase our costs."
Moneymaker For Others, But Not CUs
But for Mazuma CU and 1st Financial FCU of St. Charles, Mo., which will install Vista before existing PCs die, the migration will require memory, video processor, and CPU upgrades in addition to licensing, installation, training, and support costs, according to Gregory and Bob Keubler, chief information officer at $155-million 1st Financial.
"I'm not thrilled at the prospect of having to double our current PC hardware configurations just to run various configurations of Vista," added Lai at Fairwinds CU. "This is a money-maker for Microsoft, AMD, Intel, and Dell, but not for our credit union."
When North Shore Credit Union upgrades half of its nearly 600 PCs to Vista in 2009, the $1.6-billion CU in Vancouver, British Columbia, will spend almost $200,000 in hardware, licensing, training, and support, said Fred Cook, CIO.
CUs said they will most likely install the Vista Business edition, which some CUs, in fact, have begun to evaluate in test environments, and may run the new operating system in a mixed environment with Windows XP or Citrix servers.
"I will most likely purchase a laptop with Vista to play with it," Sylvester added.
