The U.S. Department of Transportation has quietly put the kibosh on Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), banning upgrades to those Microsoft Corp. products -- at least for now. Donna Seymour, CIO of the DOT"s Maritime Administration (MARAD), said a July move of the agency"s Washington headquarters is to blame for the reluctance to deploy Microsoft"s new software. "It has less to do with technical concerns about Microsoft and more to do with the fact that with our July move, our plates are totally full and we can"t take another thing on right now," she said in an interview today after a speech at the Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders conference in Palm Desert, Calif.
MARAD has already begun testing Vista and IE 7, according to Seymour. That testing, however, may take time because MARAD relies extensively on old, custom applications that will require long evaluation on Vista. She has not yet set an upgrade timetable, but if or when she does, Seymour said, she can add Vista and Office without spending additional money; MARAD has a Software Assurance contract with Microsoft. Even if her department doesn"t widely deploy Vista and Office 2007 until early 2009, "we would be middle of the pack among private corporations and somewhat ahead of most government agencies," Seymour claimed.