Survey: Vista security skepticism swells

Of those who do plan to test or deploy it, 58.33% said their primary interest in Vista is its "enhancements," while 30.12% cited "improved usability." Of those who have no plans to deploy Vista:

Are respondents skeptical over Microsoft's past security challenges? Not necessarily, said Amplitude Research CEO Stephen Birnkrant.

For more information Vista delay not as dramatic for enterprises Microsoft says Vista security will drive adoption

"I think it's just that it's a major change and IT administrators want to take it slowly," he said. "Some may also be looking at Vista's delayed release and reassessing their own plans in light of that delay."

He noted that Vista's delay was announced around the time the survey was conducted. "I think that was a factor," he said.

VanDyke Software also commissioned Amplitude Research to conduct a simultaneous, separate survey of 252 network and system administrators working in the computer hardware, software and telecommunications industries.

"The findings suggest a high level of segmentation regarding adoption plans, with 67.04% of the 252 respondents indicating that they would deploy Vista," Birnkrant said. "Why the percentage of those planning to deploy Vista is higher in these sectors, I couldn't tell you."

One factor in the overall response may be that IT professionals are reluctant to put all their security eggs in one basket. Vista has been touted as an upgrade with a number of built-in security features, but according to the survey, more than 90% of respondents said they prefer a mix of security tools. Specifically, only about 8% said they rely on a single-source vendor to assemble their arsenals of information-security tools, while 90.58% said they "mix-and-match" from multiple sources.

But Birnkrant doubts those responses had anything to do with Vista. "I'm not convinced the security tools in Vista are the same tools people were thinking of when they answered the single-source security questions," he said.

Tags: Windows Security: Alerts, Updates and Best Practices,  Configuration Management Planning,  Enterprise Risk Management: Metrics and Assessments,  VIEW ALL TAGS

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