Report: Vista Security Not Enterprise Ready

Microsoft's attempts to bolster security may hurt it in the enterprise sector, an analyst report said Monday. Behind the Boston analyst firm Yankee Group's reasoning is the general user-unfriendliness of those security features.

As such, Yankee Group has recommended users stick with Windows XP Service Pack 2 until 2008 if they believe such issues may present a problem. It even suggested looking at Apple's dual-boot Macs as a "hedging strategy."

The firm gathered feedback from developers, who complained that Microsoft had went too far in its implementation. They also said that some of the security measures were too repetitive, and even seemed to talk down to the user.

The report's author Andy Jaquith specifically pointed to the user account feature as an area of greatest concern. Based on a build released in December 2005, the way the feature was implemented in that release was too strict and a posed potential problem.

However, it should be mentioned that researchers did complement the Redmond company's efforts in strengthening the overall security of the operating system. But the firm still felt the way it was implemented would turn off enterprise customers from Vista.

Jaquith believes it would be well into next year before these security features are improved, which could indicate many enterprise users may hold off on large-scale licensing of the new operating system. Microsoft is counting on Vista to improve its bottom line and bring a return for investors, who have seen its stock price stagnate for much of the past five years.

Yankee Group said that it expected the antivirus industry not to suffer from the release of Vista, although anti-spyware and firewall products would likely see a significant drop in demand. Vista will have both features natively integrated into the operating system.