Windows Vista Flunks At MIT

Posted by Paul McDougall on February 8, 2007

Tech staffers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are warning professors and administrators at the school -- host to one of the country's most prestigious computer science departments -- not to upgrade desktops or laptops to Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system because the software isn't yet ready for "productive and safe computing," according to an internal statement posted on MIT's Web site.

Specifically, MIT's department of information services and technology is warning computer users at the school away from the Enterprise Edition of Windows Vista. The reason, according to the Web posting, is that many critical security and productivity applications aren't yet compatible with the OS.

Among the applications or utilities that MIT's IS&T department is concerned about are Cisco's VPN client, Mathematica technical computing software, MIT's Athena Clusters authenticated printing environment, and SAP's SAPgui graphical user interface for SAP R/3.

The document indicates that MIT as a whole will begin to migrate to Windows Vista once more compatible applications and utilities become available. One reason: Vista's enhanced energy utilization features alone will save the university more than $1 million annually in reduced energy bills.

For now, though, the following is the IS&T department's recommendation to workers at MIT: "If you are purchasing new computers, we recommend purchasing the machine with Windows XP."