Old Mutual goes Vista

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MielieSpoor

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Old Mutual goes Vista

This deal is worth more or less R40 million...(estimate) and excluding the hardware upgrades needed to achieve this upgrade.

I know Standard Bank had the goal of being the first Corporate company in SA to fully impliment Vista. This is definately in the pipeline, what I'm not to sure when the will actually impliment it. Standard Bank will impliment it on roughly 40 000 pc's and will cost millions.

I also know that MTN moved over to Vista in December but they had to go back to XP as key software they are using isn't supported by Vista and the developer of the software said that it won't support the software for a while.
 
This is a very brave (stupid) move for a large corporate. I would love to know what sort of special MS is giving them to get them to move. Free software for 10 years?
 
MielieSpoor said:
How/Why can/do you say that?
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Do you remember the problems large corporates had with XP roll outs in the early days? Vista has been out 6 months and to trust your organisation on such new technology is very risky. All custom software will have problems and there are bound to be security risks associated with such a new release. For home users I don't see it as a problem but for a corporate of Old Mutuals size, it's silly.
 
Well, you don't know how many testing has gone into that decision. I know for a fact that Standard Bank has been doing tets on Vista since December.

So I won't blindly say that its such a stupid decision. If they did their homework and proper testing, Vista will have more benefits to their organisation. And btw, paying millions for an implimentation like this, no CEO wil aprove of it if it doesn't have more positive things than negative things.
 
Abe said:
Do you remember the problems large corporates had with XP roll outs in the early days? Vista has been out 6 months and to trust your organisation on such new technology is very risky. All custom software will have problems and there are bound to be security risks associated with such a new release. For home users I don't see it as a problem but for a corporate of Old Mutuals size, it's silly.
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Your right in one way, however it's important to remember that for a large corporate these systems usually run in a controlled environment, and if they have done their homework with regards to software compatibility etc, they should have very few problems, obviously MTN did not do that.

Home users are generally uncontrolled and install anything they can lay their hands on, this is when problems such as incompatible software etc are found.

My company runs Vista on all it's machines excluding servers off course, and we have had a few problems, but that happens when you have a bunch of developers. for the average user, who can not install software in a controlled environment, Vista should be rock solid.
 
MielieSpoor said:
So I won't blindly say that its such a stupid decision. If they did their homework and proper testing, Vista will have more benefits to their organisation. And btw, paying millions for an implimentation like this, no CEO wil aprove of it if it doesn't have more positive things than negative things.
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The positive thing is the price. MS wants a poster child and OM want cheap licenses. I have been involved with lots of roll outs of different kinds and little things can come back and bite you regardless of how much testing you do. People install software on their machines even though they are not allowed to. This is an accident waiting to happen. There is a chance that everything goes off according to plan but that is probably only in the region of 30%.

One other idea is tha OM may have done the deal yet in their minds they are going to use XP until SP1. The win both ways then as they get a good price and have the option of using a previous gen OS (which MS gives you with Vista).
 
onlyme said:
My company runs Vista on all it's machines excluding servers off course, and we have had a few problems, but that happens when you have a bunch of developers. for the average user, who can not install software in a controlled environment, Vista should be rock solid.
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I know what you are saying but there is never something like a fully controlled environment. Small offices don't have the same issues as a company like OM with branches all around the country. Something as silly as a 250Meg Vista update that installs itself over their 64K line could pop up. Also, users install stuff that they shouldn't and even worse, departments go off and buy software on the sly to solve a problem. IT don't know about the software and bang, you suddenly have 2 weeks of major problems and a mixed environment. Also, IMO, Vista has not been wild enough to identify security risks, patching issues (especially big SP type patches) yet.
 
Yes but remeber. OM is a financial institution. They cannot afford to let users install every little program that they can get their hands on. They work with very confidential and and highly sensitive data so they have to prtect it in every possible way.

In Standard Bank you don't have Admin rights on your pc. So if you want to install something, then you need you managers permission (and believe me, they don't easily give that permission!!!) Sometimes you even need your directors aproval before you can get the admin rights needed to install software.

And the only software that are allowed to be installed, is software that the whole company use. If the whole company doesn't use it, then you don't use it. As simple as that!!

I can only think that OM will work in much the same way. If that is the case then I can't think why it would be bad for them to switch over to Vista (if they have tested all their software and it works that is...)
 
Unfortunately as much as we all hate vista were all going to upgrade to it one of these days. XP is not going to be patched forever. I'd love to know when the first vista SP is due for release.

In Standard Bank you don't have Admin rights on your pc.
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Must be one of the few places to accomplish this. For legacy apps its a nightmare to achieve! Admins dream of the day of users not having admin rights! :)
 
gregmcc said:
Must be one of the few places to accomplish this. For legacy apps its a nightmare to achieve! Admins dream of the day of users not having admin rights! :)
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I have worked with another of the banks and they definitely had massive problems closing down the machines. There are just too many applications that need to be supported.
 
I worked in Old Mutual... they were always two generations behind by policy... wonder what happened :P Probably cause CSC lost the contract.
 
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