Carter Holt Harvey gives Vista the cold shoulder

Although forest products company Carter Holt Harvey was an early adopter of Microsoft's Windows XP, the company has no plans to upgrade to Vista.

In fact, CHH will probably skip the new operating system altogether, says Krassi Modkov, manager of design and implementation at CHH Infotech, the company’s IT department.

“It’s not in our plans to upgrade to Vista. At this stage, we can’t see the benefit of it.”

Modkov says the company is not an early adopter-type organisation, although it was an early adopter of XP, as well as of Microsoft’s virtualisation platform two years ago.

If a technology platform serves its purpose, there is no reason to change or upgrade it, says Modkov. And when CHH does decide to upgrade it will probably not go for the latest operating system version, says Modkov.

“When we adopt a new technology, we ride the technology wave for as long as we possibly can,” he says.

The company is not alone in preferring XP to Vista either. In July, Microsoft’s CFO, expat Kiwi Chris Liddell, said Microsoft had revised its fiscal year 2008 forecast, as it no longer saw there being an 85%/15% split between sales of Vista and XP, respectively.

The company now foresees a more conservative 78%/22% split, according to Computerworld US. This means sales of Windows XP are now expected to be nearly 50% higher over the next 12 months than had originally been anticipated.

Another indicator that XP is still going strong was Dell’s April announcement that it would return to offering Windows XP on its consumer PCs for small business and home users.

Earlier this year, Microsoft extended its support for Windows XP Home and XP Media Centre, to match Windows XP Professional’s termination date of April 2014. It plans to terminate sales of Windows XP to resellers and retailers after January 31, 2008, says Computerworld US.

Carter Holt Harvey employs 10,000 people across New Zealand, Australia and Asia. CHH Infotech has 150 staff across New Zealand and Australia.