or, really, is vista ready for cpas?
join the poll; get the answers.
by rick telberg
at large
don’t you just hate it when microsoft introduces a new operating system?
as a rule, many accountants drag their feet in upgrading hardware and software. it’s not so much a case of not wanting to embrace the newest technology. it’s more an awareness of how critical most of the technology in use in the accounting process is to the underlying mission of the business — whether public or corporate. if there is such a thing as a rallying cry in the accounting profession, it would be “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”most accountants have personal horror stories about past “improvements” that resulted in corrupted data, incorrect computations and/or lost clients. it’s no wonder that many accountants still pine for the “good old days” of ms-dos. at the same time, as a profession, accountants are often the first to flock to new technology. they were the first profession to adopt mechanical calculators — “accounting machines” — from ncr and burroughs, visicalc and 1-2-3 software.
still, change is inevitable. and a sea change is upon us with the imminent release of vista.
microsoft has made it even more difficult not to upgrade to new releases of its operating systems. not only will just about every retail pc other than apple-branded models be sold with vista installed by mid-2007, but at the same time microsoft encourages even stragglers to upgrade by declaring a product has reached its “end of life” and reducing or eliminating support for it. it will be years before that happens to windows xp, but it is lurking in the wings.
some tech enthusiasts say the good news is that for most cpas, upgrading to vista will be relatively painless. the biggest potential hurdle, an entirely new file system, was one feature that microsoft touted for vista that dropped by the wayside early in the development process. so file compatibility between vista and current windows versions is not going to be a problem.
the bad news is that there are multiple versions of vista, with different feature sets and hardware requirements. it was bad enough with windows xp, available in home, professional and media center editions. vista is going to be available in six different versions, although one of these is destined only for emerging countries.
at the initial launch, vista may not offer much to accountants. the largest obvious difference is the aero user interface, which looks pretty, but is not in itself a reason to upgrade. somewhat more subtle are vista’s performance boosters. the new operating system can make great use of a new type of hard disk drive, called a “hybrid” drive, which incorporates flash memory into the drive. if your pc doesn’t have one of these new drives (and they aren’t widely available yet), vista can simulate a hybrid drive if you plug a usb flash drive into the pc.
there’s been a lot of discussion about whether many existing pcs will be ready for a vista upgrade. in many cases, the largest concern is the video capability necessary to run the new aero interface. most existing pcs, unless they are fairly old, should have enough memory and processing power to run vista using the less visually impressive “flat” user interface. the performance-enhancing capabilities of vista will be more evident with the newer, more powerful dual-core and coming quad-core systems.
nevertheless, many cpas will probably wait at least until after the busy season. the smart ones will check first with the vendors of their mission-critical applications. but most will probably be dabbling with it by this time next year.
[first published by the aicpa]