David Callister MLC queried in Tynwald today (Tuesday) why the decision had been taken to transfer from Windows XP to Vista, which he said had proven to be the most 'universally loathed' product that Microsoft had ever produced.

He pointed out thousands had contributed to website forums entitled 'I hate Vista', 'Vista is c***', 'Vista is rubbish' and 'Don't Buy Vista'.

'That's the extent to which Vista is reviled,' he said.

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He argued there should not have been any need to change at this stage as Windows 7 was due out probably later this year or certainly by early next year.

Chief Minister Tony Brown said the cost of transfer had been £492,000.

He said Treasury had approved the plan to upgrade to Windows Vista in October 2007 because the old system was no longer IT-supported.

'I am advised that the reason for the change was that the version of Windows used by government, known as Windows XP service pack 1, was no longer in support, and therefore Treasury through their Information Systems Division commenced planning to upgrade to Windows Vista as a supported system,' he said.

Mr Brown said the new system was currently being rolled out and the general view was that it was working well.

Juan Watterson (Rushen) said the government only went over to Windows XP in 2004 and questioned how long it would be before the replacement system was no longer supported. Mr Brown replied that was an impossible question to answer.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Send your comments to newsviews@newsiom.co.im

YOUR COMMENTS

To say Vista is rubbish is stupid. Some people like it, some people hate it. It's just their opinion. However, to say Windows XP is no longer supported to justify spending half-a-million quid IS deception. Note: Adding the letters 'SP1' means the claim isn't technically a lie because XP is now at SP3 (the technicalities of SP1 vs SP2 vs SP3 are irrelevant to this discussion). But Windows XP IS supported by Microsoft. I doubt the Politician is at fault - his advisors have simply "misled" him. Oops.
STEVE

The old operating system of Windows XP service pack 1 may no longer be supported but service pack 3 which is still supported would have cost a lot less to install. In fact, if the government PCs had been set up to accept automatic Windows updates, they would have been kept up to date with a supported system automatically. Microsoft are due to release another new operating system next year so is the Government thinking of upgrading then?
MIKE

Government waste again. What are they going to do when Windows 7 is rolled out in the near future? Will that be another £500k on top of this. This administration has to be the worst executive the island has seen. Regards,
JONATHAN

Good points everyone above. Windows 7 which is due for release within the next 12 months is actually an upgrade of Vista with all of the viruses & bugs 'ironed out'. To spend £500k now is a joke with the KSF depositors scheme payout, the MEA unauthorised loan and the global recession all high on the agenda. Windows XP is a perfectly good operating system - I myself had 'SP1', however with 'automatic updates' I now have 'SP3' - AT NO COST! Government spending (of taxpayers money) needs to be looked at. Spend the money on something that actually NEEDS to be done like resurfacing roads that actually need to be resurfaced - unlike the Pulrose traffic lights! Money seems to be burning a hole in the Government's pockets at the moment and it seems like they can't wait to spend again!
DO

"…the old system was no longer IT-supported." … by Treasury's Information Systems Division. One can wonder how well qualified the person in charge of this division is for IT job.
JIRI

This is a joke article isnt it? If it isnt the civil servants will be back to using pens paper and filing cabinets again within a month when its crashed. Still it will benefit the office equipment suppliers on the island!
GP

Dear Sir, During my 30 years in the computer industry I first founded and developed a computer company in the UK which within 4 years became the largest supplier to most central and local government and education, as well as 370 of the Times Top 500 companies. I was heavily involved with all operating systems including Windows from version 1, as a Microsoft partner, so I feel qualified to comment on this issue and the government technology "strategy" generally. First and foremost I would question whether the government actually employed the services of a non-supplier connected consultant before making this Windows upgrade decision, or whether their "usual" favourite supplier - presumably the same one they have always used for the same reasons, persuaded them it was necessary, so a nice tidy sum could be banked. I know how much they would have made but I will not mention it here. On Windows Vista - to say that Windows Vista is the most "universally reviled product that Microsoft ever produced" is just plain ridiculous, and obviously the words of a person who has very little or no understanding of the technologies or factors involved with Windows Vista, and who has probably been frequenting the many "anti-Microsoft" conspiracy" forums, most of which were started by people who use Linux. I know that because I use both Windows Vista and Linux Server operating systems. The main issue with Vista is not the operating system itself, which is in fact the most flexible and stable Windows ever produced - by far - but the fact that Vista is very resource hungry and needs at least double the processing power and RAM to run anything like adequately compared to XP. With enough resources VISTA runs virtually flawlessly. Unless all of the government PC's are very recent, or have been upgraded to more RAM at least, and already have Vista supported devices installed, there is every chance that many users will be very disappointed at how slow their PC runs, if at all, no doubt jumping on the "Vista is rubbish" bandwagon when it is in fact their PC. But here is the absolutely unbelievable aspect of this whole fiasco. Later this year Windows 7 will be launched, and there is no question whatsoever to me and the vast majority of beta testers, that Windows 7 will be vastly superior to Vista in many respect, not the least reason because Microsoft have stripped out much of the resource hogging code of Vista so Windows 7 will run very happily on a PC that originally ran Windows XP. So why oh why did the government IT department allow themselves to get sold this "mass Vista update" which will almost certainly be a step backwards for many users, when they could have waited a year and updated directly to Windows 7, which would no doubt have been a very worthwhile and justifiable move that would provide the Windows basis for the next decade? Whoever supplied the Vista updates absolutely must have known this unless they are incredibly incompetent - or something else. Of course the "supplier" will be well positioned to mass update all the Vista PC's to Windows 7 next year to resolve the issues with "reviled Vista" for another £500K of tax payers money. It seems to me that 50% of taxpayers money is wasted on "mistakes" such currency management errors, IT management errors, massive capital overspends, and lets not forget the few hundred millions under-sight of the MEA debacle that the consumer is now paying for.
AC

To be honest this is actually a good strategic decision. Windows XP will go end of life on June the 30th 2010 For an operation like central government you can't allow yourself to get into a position where you core software is unsupported. It's a simple decision. Upgrade now and overlap as you phase XP out, or wait until June 2010 and take the hit in one go. There are financial implications to consider too. Upgrade now is cheaper than waiting another year. 500K to upgrade all the governments core software is very reasonable, and they are probably to be congratulated for negotiating this as part of an ongoing Microsoft support contract.
ANON

Who have they actually got running the computer systems for our ever spending government. Surely even the most inexperienced IT trainee knows how to ensure regular sp packs are installed. There again time and time again our useless elected do whatever they want when they want and how they want with scant regard to what the general public want
PEEJAY

As Steve says, it seems that somebody has been misled! Windows XP is a very capable operating system and works well (it's had many years of updates and fine turning). In my opinion, much better than Vista. I'm surprised that the ISD 'techies' did not inform the 'powers that be' that their current XP systems could be updated to SP3 and still be supported until Microsoft withdraw their support in 2014. The Isle of Man Government should have kept the money in the bank rather than 'upgrading' to an operating system that performs the same as XP, but fails to run older software. I suppose Vista looks a little posher! I used Vista daily at work for approx six months, but have gone back to using XP as it works better for me. I don't suppose I can return the licence for a refund? Maybe it's not too late for the IoM Govt to do the same? Just my opinion.
MW

Open Source Software could easily save the IoM Govt. £250K per year.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/-French-parliament-picks-Ubuntu-for-Linux-switch/0,130061733,339274191,00.htm
http://www.osor.eu/news/de-foreign-ministry-cost-of-open-source-desktop-maintenance-is-by-far-the-lowest
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/02/windows_vista_forrester/
http://why.openoffice.org/
PJ

To say that all PC's could just be upgraded to service pack 3, thus extending the life of XP is a little silly, when you consider the vast number of bespoke applications that are in use by various government departments. To roll out a service pack, each and every application requires testing to make sure the upgrade doesn't affect it. Take the hospital for example, is it worth the risk of computer blue screening when a consultant is trying to look at a patients x-ray mid way through an operation? To undertake a roll-out of a service pack and fully test it first, would probably cost the same as upgrading to Vista. Vista will remain supported far longer than XP so I for one can fully understand the decision to upgrade to Vista.
NICK

Dear Sir, I would like to address the issue of Windows XP Service Packs that I did not mention in my last letter, but has been raised, rightly, by several of your other correspondents. The fact that government PC's were still running Windows XP Service Pack 1 is just plain unforgivable, not to mention grossly incompetent and negligent. Windows XP SP 1 was released in September 2002, meaning that all government PC's are running on operating systems that are well over 6 years old. The main purpose of Service Packs are not just "bug fixes" as most seem to think, but much more importantly security fixes - which surely must be of the highest priority for sensitive government data. Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released in August 2004 - well over 4 years ago, primarily as a "security release" to deal with numerous security issues, most of which remain unknown to most. XP SP2 also included major updates to the Windows Firewall system to defend against trojans primarily but also viruses. Windows XP Service Pack 3 was released just about a year ago, and included 1174 bug fixes alone - since SP2 - many of which were security related. XP Service Pack 2 will be supported until July 2010, and SP3 for longer. So what may we conclude? The fact that the government PC's with all of their sensitive data are still running Windows XP Service Pack 1 is unforgivable, grossly incompetent and grossly negligent - to say the least. It costs the government, and therefore the tax payer nothing to update to the latest service packs, and indeed with Windows Automatic Update switched on there is not even any manpower involved it just happens. Windows XP SP3 would take the government through with a fully supported Windows operating system until 2012 at least, at which point a mass update to the new Windows 7 could have been executed with confidence. This, to me, as an expert witness, is a major governmental debacle, which, to be fair, was probably equally contributed to either gross incompetence, opportunism and maybe more serious actions on the part of their "IT provider", who, in all likelihood, are probably ripping the government/taxpayer off for millions in total over what these technologies should cost - again I speak from the standpoint of vast experience in these areas and in dealing extensively with most UK Universities, local and central governmental departments including Downing Street and the Palace, all of whom trusted me - because I was always competent, fair and honest.
AC

The facts - SP3 is free and XP will be supported until 08/04/2014. SP3 roll out is straight forward compared to a timely Vista roll out (not to mention Vista application compatibility issues that SP3 does not have). Vista would require most of the Government machines to be upgraded to run effectively.
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223
All positive points for XP not one positive point about Vista for use in the Government. There are several points that need to be looked at. Someone has misinformed ISD on the most effective method to get around the support ending on SP1 (SP3 is free, Vista makes money). Someone in ISD has come up with a single proposal on why the Government should upgrade to Vista (with the main reason being support ending on SP1). Someone has signed off an order for half a million with only looking at limited facts. These are simple facts and easy information to find for the simple home user so why can't a government made up of thousands make the right decision. (Simple answer is the decision has been made by 3 people with half a million quid to play with).
ML

Please may I add the following comment to your article on Windows Vista and the government £500K Spending: Windows Service Packs have to be judged against the environment and the packages they are supporting. A typical office in the Isle of Man will have about 5 - 200 PCs but I imagine the givernment has 4000+ and probably runs about 500 applications across the board, let alone the platforms own inbuilt apps which regulary require upgrading and checking against security issues. To say "Oh just put SP3 on" is a gross misunderstanding of the complexity of running an Enterprise level system. I'm sure the commentors on this page may assist to run either their own small business or have at one time been involved with someting slightly larger but I would imagine if - when quizzed about how Enterprise systems ACTUALLY WORK - they comprehend the collosal ammount of work involved in such projects and fail to understand the basic concepts of WIDESCALE MULTI PLATFORM actions such as securing application dpeloyment, visibility to the end user, compatability with all OS upgrades, server-client communication security, file-access and vulnerabuilities both internal and external. The back-end systems that deploy and execute these actions need to be constantly re-worked and tweaked not only as new applications become availabel, new application updates become critical and OS vulnerabilities are reported by the manufacturer. Vista represents a huge step forward and I'm sure the government is looking at virtual applications and server systems. I have it on good authority that actually the Isle of Man Government is one of the leading exponents of modern technology and has a long-term plan to stay at this sustainable edge-level. Public scrutiny of expenditure ( unlike, say a bank ) would not stand up to it otherwise. For example : be proud the Isle of Man DHSS is not suffering the same fiasco as here in the UK. To me 500K seems a drop in the ocean for 4000 odd PCs and a backend system that I imagine would rival any large financial-critical, world-wide corporate system. Also, as a point to silence probable ill-informed detractors - you can have an XP SP1 machine but still run all available updates that you have accumulated through Windows Software Update Services - the packaging title of SPx is just not applied. And as to the comment that open source software will save money I'm not sure what planet s/he is living on : When does an Enterprise solution rely on 'freebies' - you need SLAs, accountability, 3rd-party support where necessary and if all else fails someone on the end of the phone to shout at to "GET IT FIXED!!". And if you've ever been in that situation you'll know exactly what I mean .. :)
BOB

In response to Bob - just so you are clear on this, as I mentioned before, I have been involved in the very large scale deployment of both PC's and supporting infrastructure to the UK local and central government, schools, universities, companies with tens of thousands of PC's and so on, so I do not come under your "supervising a small office" category, in fact I probably come more under the "vastly more experience than most, or even than anyone" category in the Isle of Man, these areas. On the issue of Service Packs - do you seriously believe that Microsoft would have overlooked the fact that there are probably billions of copies of Windows XP installed in a commercial environment, and issued service packs that caused havoc as well as billions of dollars in consequential damages? Service packs are necessary bug and much more importantly security fixes, without which a corporate network really could be wrecked - who knows what trojans and other malware are lurking on the government network by now, and updating to Vista will not help much. Service packs, like Windows update, are non-invasive, absolutely crucial IT management, not "upgrades" for additional functionality. Above all, no version of Windows is ever an "install and forget it" situation - not even on a home PC if you take it seriously. In a commercial environment there should always be a solid and workable infrastructure update strategy from the PC to the operating system, software and network. Vista is a "huge step forward" only if the existing installed PC's have the necessary CPU and in particular RAM to run it - otherwise it is a huge step backwards unless a few million more is available to purchase new PC's. On the other hand, had the government updated only to Windows XP SP2 for the crucial security fixes it would have kept them going and supported to 2010, at which point they could move directly to Windows 7 which would be a vastly better investment, both short term and long term. This is why the government should never rely on a single supplier, and always have non-supplier related consultants reports for large scale IT infrastructure investments.
AC

Whether Windows XP SP3 would have sufficed is not the point surely but
whether the Govts. IT employees or advisors should have cancelled the
upgrade when it became known that Microsoft were rushing through a new
OS., Windows 7, probably later this year, to replace Vista because of
its problems.Microsoft are offering a free upgrade to Windows 7 to those
who buy Vista computers now, so as not to slow down computer sales and I
would hope that the Govt. have got that guarantee of a free upgrade or
these IT. people really will have wasted our money.
JWK

Sir, The IoM Government's upgrade from XP SP1 to Vista has attracted a lot of flack and uninformed comment. The Government's Information Systems Decision (ISD) has to make decisions based on facts and circumstances, as an IT director of a major business across in the UK I have to make similar decisions, so here are some facts:-
Vista works. It requires up to date PCs with plenty of power and memory, but it works and is supportable. Microsoft did not communicate the difficulties of upgrading to it very well when it was launched, many people with older / smaller PCs had problems as a consequence, and it has been much denigrated because of this.
XP is fully supported until April 2009, and XP Service Pack 3 will be supported with security fixes until 2014, however it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy new PCs with XP because Microsoft do not wish to sell it anymore, and this poses a problem for anyone running a large estate of desktop computers who wants to keep a standard configuration across them. Sooner or later the decision must be to upgrade in order to ensure that all PCs being supported are running the same software.
Microsoft has different levels of support, and "Mainstream" support for XP ends April 2009 (next month), after which users will have to purchase extended support agreements, or they will only receive free security hotfixes until XP's end of life in 2014. As the Gov't has a responsibility to ensure that the systems supporting IoM residents keep working it has a choice of either paying to upgrade to Vista, or paying for extended support of XP. There is no "no cost option" available to the Gov't.
The next version of Windows - Windows 7, will be released soon, but most IT directors with large numbers of desktops (including me) will defer implementation of a new system until it is well tested and the major problems have been ironed out. For a Microsoft operating system this normally means waiting until a year or eighteen months after launch - so the Gov't would be unwise and possibly irresponsible to upgrade to Windows 7 before 2011.
A large proportion of home PCs are equipped with Vista, so many Gov't employees are already familiar with using it. There is a strong argument in reducing staff training and support costs for Gov't to ensure that the computer environment employees use at work is one they are used to and can use efficiently - this saves Government money.
Some modern software is designed to run on Vista, some of it will not operate properly on XP, so running XP for a prolonged period after it has been superceded would limit the software options available to Government in constructing systems to support IoM residents.
As an IT professional I personally don't like Vista, and in my own, commercial, business we will not be adopting it, we will wait until 2011 and move straight from XP to Windows 7, however it is my decision on behalf of my business to take the risk of running software that is no longer fully supported by Microsoft, and one which I have taken in a commercial environment. Government employees do not have the same latitude to take risk - the Gov't must provide continuous services for healthcare, welfare, education etc. If I were in the shoes of the Gov't IT director I would, reluctantly, have made the same decision to upgrade to Vista.
In the context of these considerations I think that the criticism of the Government's IT Director and Information Systems Division is unfair and unwarranted. I have no interests in IoM Government IT other than as an IoM resident - I have never worked for the IoM Government or any of its suppliers.
STEVE BURROWS FBCS CITP

IOMTODAY online allows 'viewers' or 'readers' ( I;m not sure how you classify an Internet audience ! ) to review current news stories and comment upon them on pages such as this. This means the general public can air their views eaither for public digestion or simply to vent frustration with the system as they see it. In this case people who are not proficient in IT or understand the vast expenditure it can easily run to ( Anyone bought Backup Exec then found they need three additional options before ..? Yeah that's a bit more than I had orginally planned ! ) may look at this forum and go "Well these people seem to know what theyare talking about and they are almost unanimous in their condemnation of govt. strategy on this matter - I want answers !" when in actual fact the SP1 moniker is obviously just a simple slip of understanding that has generated some curious observation. To answer AC: Despite your experience in the field ( and I do not doubt that ) I do not understand how you fail to grasp the concept that SPs are JUST NAMES for a colection of fixes that can be installed individually. If there are 'x' many fixes in a given SP ( and I mean any Microsoft products SP from Office to Exchange to SQL to Systems Managament Server ) but several of them crash certain applications ( As is proably the case with older software favoured by some people ) then the prudent thing to do is manage the other 'x-y' fixes and distribute them either through Policy, SMS, WSUS or whatever your choice of deployment is. This is time consuming but necessary with legacy appliactions. Any major player in Enterprise techonology WOULD NEVER JUST DEPLOY A FULL SP withouth rigorous testing. Also today, in the current very introverted, security aware market the mass of your security is Edge-levelm not endpoint. I would imagine the govt. has several thick layers of warm wolly security to keep it away fom those nasty people out there in the cloud like any self-respecting corporation does. As no data is ( generally these days ) stored on client PCs ( Which tend just to be pretty much empty boxes with an OS for Softgrid to run on ) the Microsoft Kxxxx fixes have reduced importance ( But still essential in some respects ). I would imagine the govt model includes all the hardware I reccomend to my large clients - ISAs, Mail filtering, Endpoint Firewall security etc. and that the people there on the Isle of Man can say with certainty "My data held by the govt. is safe!" whereas ( as we have seen ) the citizens here in the UK can be less certain of that same comment about their own. AC I do not understand, given your experience, how you cannot see this. To all other non-trechnical people reading this: Technology breeds some strange orators and debates on IT are often personality / preference based and everything here ( including my own comments ) are guesses. But if the Isle of man IT suppliers ( who I know, having dealt with them, have held the contract for several years now ) have in anyway 'hoodwinked' ( as one person put it ) or misled the governemtn or the government has been 'almsot negligent' or 'easily led' ( as otheers put it on this page ) then why do they keep offering new innovations, stay in the lead of progressive technology and keep the budgets down. 500K is nothing believe me. And Whatever you think about Vista, or SPs of govt IT legislation I;m sure that money was 500k well spent. :) ( ooh that was long wasn't it.. sorry ! )
BOB

IOM Govt Windows XP and Vista If one kept an eye on the Windows world, it was obvious that Microsoft were having to extend support for XP. XP was scheduled to be around long after 2007 anyway. I trialled a laptop with Vista Business on it and it only took 2-3 days of rage and frustration to recognize it for what it was- a shambles. I scrapped Vista, installed XP Pro and returned to productivity. Total cost £250 or thereabouts. Someone in IOM Gov made a decision they were not qualified to make, whether judged on 'technical' or 'common sense' criteria. They were not spending their own private money They were being paid, pensioned, holiday paid and given (non-sick) sick leave allowances- to waste our money Windows Seven is upcoming and it will be seen to be going back to XP in a number of ways. I forecast it will be better than XP, much better than Vista, and I suggest using outside expertise for an assessment of the trial versions of Seven if we do not have the ability to check the obvious in house. In any case, you do not buy an operating system until at least 12 months after launch of the alleged finished product. This shakes out the first big lot of bugs and allows the peripheral drivers to be provided and/or debugged. This is BASIC and should be known by anyone in a position to spend public money on IT.
AKW, Onchan