Windows Vista launch - live from the Australian event

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 30 November 2006 06:11

Your IT - Entertainment

Microsoft has finally launched the business editions of Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exhange 2007. The event has so far heavily focused on all of the business aspects and benefits of deploying Microsoft’s latest, with supporting acts from hardware vendors and business customers.

Windows Vista is finally here at last. For those who have been following the preview articles from earlier today, I did manage to secure my copy of Windows Vista RTM – the final business version – and will definitely be upgrading my system later today.

Microsoft Australia CEO Steve Vamos launched the event, talking about innovation, collaboration , drivers for economic growth and how Microsoft’s new platforms were designed to help people work better together.

Unfortunately, Brad Brooks, General Manager, Windows Product Marketing was unable to be at the Australian launch, with the reason given that Seattle was snowed in when he tried to leave on the journey down under, so Jeff Putt and Tony Wilkinson of Microsoft Australia were on hand to talk about all of the new features and their benefits to business customers and their general and IT staff.

Features such as the shadow copy helped to protect users from themselves when they might accidentally delete a file. The instant desktop search features help you find information stored anywhere on your computer in very quick time.

Flip 3D and other graphical niceties make working in the operating system much easier and more productive. The integration with Office 2007, Exchange 2007, SharePoint 2007 and more allow individuals and companies stay more productive and better retain corporate memories.

The ability to access your Outlook email, calendar and other details by making a phone call and interacting by voice, even answering emails and checking appointments came across as very impressive. How they’d work with kids screaming in the car is another issue, but in the test environment up on stage it seemed to work flawlessly.

We learned that the latest Microsoft software has undergone the largest testing program in Microsoft’s history, with 5 million test users worldwide.

We did learn that, in the US, Microsoft is supposed to be giving away a free copy of a Vista and Office 2007 license for those watching a series of educational videos on Microsoft software.

According to Jeff Putt of Microsoft Australia, head of the local Windows division, there are no plans to launch a similar program into the Australian market, which will no doubt come as a disappointment to Australian users wanting a free copy.

We heard from a range of Microsoft’s early adopter customers who were all very complimentary of the whole process and very happy to be using Microsoft’s latest software. Three of Microsoft’s hardware partners, being HP, Dell and Toshiba, were also very excited about the launch.

There's more launch news on the next page - please read on!