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Third Parties Support Vista Launch
While Microsoft is busy celebrating the release of Windows Vista and Office 2007, a posse of partners also lined up to announce support for the new products. Unfortunately, many of those third-party announcements are long on promises and short on details, including specifics as to when those new and updated products will actually reach market.
Third-party independent software vendors (ISV) and independent hardware vendors (IHV) have traditionally piggybacked their refresh cycles on top of new versions of Windows. Recognizing the added momentum that a cohesive hardware and software "community" can add to its sales volumes, Microsoft has typically gone out of its way to get them on board early because IT shops need other pieces of the puzzle to completely update their infrastructure.
Still, historically, many ISVs and IHVs -- other than PC OEMs -- often take several more months after a new Windows release to fully tune and test their products before shipment.
One company that did announce ship dates for its Vista-compatible products is Seattle-based Attachmate. The company announced it will ship Reflection 2007 next spring a next-generation terminal emulation solution built specifically to take advantage of enhancements in Vista. Additionally, earlier in November, Attachmate shipped its first product to receive Microsoft’s Certified for Windows Vista logo -- EXTRA! X-treme v9, a terminal emulation package for connecting Microsoft Windows users to IBM zSeries, IBM iSeries and Unix systems. Reflection 2007 will also sport the compatibility logo.
Another ISV, Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec, said it will ship a slew of corporate products in December. These include Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.0, Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10.2 and Symantec AntiVirus Enterprise Edition 10.2. In addition, Symantec Backup Exec 11d for Windows Servers and Backup Exec System Recovery support for Vista will ship 2007. Other products are also in work but no timeline was given for them.
Meanwhile, Islandia, NY-based CA announced that it is delivering virus and spyware protection for corporate customers running Vista. Among those products are CA Threat Manager, CA Anti-Virus and CA Anti-Spyware.
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.