I was talking to one of our software vendors about application compatibility, and they said that not many of their customers had asked about Vista. I guess there is nothing new in this. Not everyone will go to the latest and greatest. Not every school will have the ability to re image lots of computers with Vista. However, we faced the same argument when I started here 5-6 years ago. Everyone was running Windows 98, and upgrading to XP was badly needed. If we were still using 98 everywhere, I’d have about ten times the amount of work to do that I do now.
So there is a fairly compelling case for migrating to the latest and greatest. I suppose there may still be schools out there running Windows 98. New applications are not supported on 98, you can’t get patches for it, and most of all, it’s insecure and buggy. My school is careful about spending money, but they have long since banished 98 from the site. I really really really really really really do not think anyone can afford to have their heads in the sand about the need to migrate. At the moment new leased laptops aren’t yet offered with Vista, but that must logically change soon, because XP and Office 2003 are both falling out of mainstream support this year.