The Department of Defence has abandoned its deployment of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and will forgo plans to deploy Windows Vista and Office 2007, citing the products lack “significant business advantage”.
A Defence notice leaked to Computerworld and signed by chief technology officer Matt Yannopoulos said Microsoft was scratched out during a review of the department's information architecture management server, desktop roadmap, and defence approved software list reports.
“The CTO has assessed these products and deemed they provide no significant business advantage for Defence,” the notice states.
“In addition, implementing these products would require an investment in new and upgraded hardware and the chief information officer group is not in a position to undertake this investment at this time.”
Instead Defence will bypass Vista and consider a roll out of the upcoming Windows 7 platform.
The department only finished its upgrade to XP in 2007, an operating system that was released to the public in 2001.
Microsoft Exchange Server is used as the department's messaging system.
“The future of the Microsoft Office Suite and Exchange Server will be detailed at a later time,” according to the notice.
Yannopoulos warned developers that applications will need to be compatible with Windows XP “accordingly for the lifecycle of the system”.
Computerworld is waiting for a response from Defence about this decision.
