[WinPartners] Upcoming Software Releases

[Don Montabana]

To Members of the MIT Community:

 

Information Services and Technology (IS&T), in collaboration with IT
colleagues across campus, has begun several important software release
projects that will have a significant impact on the MIT community. I'd like
to share a brief overview of these releases to provide context for the more
specific messages that will be communicated going forward and to help you
make informed choices. 

 

Please note that at this time, IS&T strongly recommends that community
members wait to transition to Microsoft's Windows Vista Enterprise
(including Windows Mail) and Office 2007(including Outlook 2007) until your
Department, Lab or Center (DLC) or other IT support providers are ready to
support you.

 

MICROSOFT'S WINDOWS VISTA ENTERPRISE

- Vista is the latest operating system from Microsoft for the Windows
platform

- A number of critical software packages such as TSM, FileMaker and SAPgui
do not currently work with Windows Vista.

- Windows Vista system requirements are much higher than Windows XP
Professional.

- Availability and basic support is planned for January 30, 2007

- Full support is planned for the summer/fall 2007

 

MICROSOFT'S OFFICE 2007

- Office 2007 is the latest version of the Office productivity suite for the
Windows platform and includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

- Outlook 2007 is part of the Office 2007 suite but is being handled as a
separate release project.

- Transitioning to Office 2007 has a steep learning curve because of major
user interface changes and default file formats are not compatible with
previous versions of Office.  

- Availability and full support is planned for February 2007

 

OUTLOOK 2007

- Outlook 2007 is the latest version of the email client packaged with
Office 2007 for the Windows platform.

- Availability and full support is planned for February 2007

 

WINDOWS MAIL 

- Windows Mail is the replacement for Outlook Express and is installed as
part of the new Windows Vista operating system.

- Basic support date has not yet been determined

 

VIRUSSCAN ENTERPRISE 8.5i

- Latest version of the MIT licensed anti-virus package from McAfee

- Needed for Windows Vista as earlier versions do not work

- Not recommended for Windows XP Professional

- Availability and full support is planned for February 2007

 

TIVOLI STORAGE MANAGER 5.4 (TSM)

- Latest version of MIT's Enterprise Backup solution

- Needed for Windows Vista as earlier versions do not work

- Availability and full support is planned for March 2007

 

IS&T will continue to communicate to the MIT community throughout these
software release projects. If you have questions or would like more
information, please visit the Software Release Team's Project Notebooks at
http://web.mit.edu/ist/swrt/ or contact the team at swrt at mit.edu.

 

 

Best Regards,

 

Don

 

 

-- 
Don Montabana
Director, Client Support Services
Information Services and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building N42-175
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
Office: (617)253-5654
Fax: (617)258-9535
 <mailto:donm at mit.edu> donm at mit.edu        <http://web.mit.edu/ist/org/css>
http://web.mit.edu/ist/org/css

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/winpartners/attachments/20070124/f882cb70/attachment.htm