I spent most of this last weekend (and eventually into the week) upgrading my house and office to Vista. In total I upgraded 3 servers and a laptop, and synchronised all of my content using one of the best new tools in Vista, robocopy.

It made me realise that doing a manual upgrade to Exchange 2007, Office 2007, or Vista is not for the faint of heart.

My new Lenovo T60 laptop came preloaded with Windows XP. It was great - turn on the power, push the power (aka Easy Button), and an hour later my Vista environment and all of the third party applications I like were configured and installed. I then inserted the Windows Vista DVD, waited two hours, realised the update process wasn't working because wireless isn't automatically configured, plugged it in, and waited another 2 hours for 80MB of drivers to be downloaded from Microsoft.

The cool thing was that Vista just worked (well, except for the quality of the ATI video drivers that I installed afterwards). The less-than-cool thing was that (a) it took so long, and (b) I then had to go to the Lenovo site to re-download all of those cool applications that Lenovo adds onto its PCs.

That was a long pre-amble, but it points to something I think is going to become evident to IT organizations of all sizes this year: the critical need for the appliance form factor for software deployment and management.

I estimate based on talking with IT departments that 80% of upgrades to Vista and Office 2007 will be in an appliance form factor – ie. preloaded on a PC or server. This year, 20% of upgrades to Exchange 2007 will probably be using some sort of appliance form factor like the Azaleos OneServer or BladeMail offerings.

Why? It's just easier. On the hardware side, many PCs and servers are not capable of running Vista or Exchange 2007. You need memory, a good graphics card, and in the case of Exchange 2007, a 64-bit processor.

Secondly, the maintenance windows that IT organizations have don't give them enough time to not only maintain Microsoft software but also to upgrade that software to the latest levels manually. An appliance form factor allows companies to predictively upgrade to the latest versions of both client and server operating systems --- and knowing that the end point (likely ruthlessly standardized) is consistent.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of Vista, Office 2007, and Exchange 2007. These are great products once installed and operational, and my personal productivity has been enhanced by about 20% with the new features and functionality. The thing I'm pointing out is the cost and complexity of upgrading has become serious - and IT departments need to consider ways of mitigating that challenge.

A few other points on Vista

There are some great sites that will evaluate whether or not your PC can run Vista. I liked AMD's site and tool or you can check out Microsoft's Vista: GetReady site.

Vista Coolnesses

• Graphics for high resolution screens like 36" LCD displays and 65" projection screens WOW!)
• Integrated video and audio capabilities - and Microsoft updates that automagically download and install correct drivers

Vista Challenges

• Problems with Vista and Exchange 2003 – requires a server fix to Exchange to access it from a web browser
• Deployment times for Vista – 2 hours installation + 2-3 hours to download and update all drivers
• Need a good internet connection – when I installed I downloaded over 80MB of content from the Windows update site which took my system 2 hours
• Beyond the obvious UI changes, Vista has “training wheels” , which pop up many more windows before actions can be taken