Stories about: Dimension Data

Dimension Data has completed an internal deployment of Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 making it the first organisation in Australia to deploy the operating system upgrade into a production environment.

Working in IT isn't always pretty. After all, we can't all work on the cutting-edge technologies all the time. Some of us have to get dirty -- in some cases, literally.

Jeff Dimock, vice president of Microsoft solutions at the IT consultancy Dimension Data Americas, expects IT organizations will like Windows Vista's tighter security. That's true even though it requires a change in both user behavior (to acknowledge the User Account Control, or UAC warnings when installing potentially harmful applications), and an update in applications (to run in user mode rather than administrator mode). "It's a lot more robust security model, but it does come at a price," he says.

Windows Vista is known for its much higher resource requirements than Windows XP, such as needing a minimum of 2GB of RAM, a fast processor, and a recent video card. That's why most analysts suggest that a Vista deployment be paired with a hardware refresh.

Although many organizations have not yet been ready to adopt Windows Vista, at some point nearly everyone will need to migrate to the new Windows OS, as the tide turns from today's compatibility deficits in Vista to a state in which XP-based PCs will lack the drivers and application support that IT will need to have deployed. After all, as Gartner analyst Michael Silver noted, Microsoft will keep refining Vista and both hardware and software makers will eventually treat it as the default operating system for their products.

Dimension Data today acquired the remaining 49 per cent share in SQL Services, a New Zealand-based specialist provider of Microsoft SQL and Oracle database management and consulting services.

Vista adoption in business has been slow (and at this writing more than 75,000 people have signed InfoWorld's petition asking Microsoft to keep Windows XP available indefinitely). Nonetheless, thousands of businesses worldwide have already adopted Vista.

More than 75,000 people have signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition in the three weeks since it was launched -- many with passionate, often emotional pleas to not be forced to make a change.

Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan presented 17 awards to the best and brightest in the Australian Information & Communications Technology (ICT) industry at its 2007 Best Practices Awards on Friday, November 16, 2007.

Cairns City Council is installing a 1000 user IP telephony system as part of a three year project to roll out unified communications across its entire legacy network.

Research firm Frost and Sullivan today announced the winners of its Australian best practice awards.