Businesses lose faith in vendors

Business customers have lost faith with IT suppliers as a result of Microsoft's controversial licensing arrangements, according to blue chip user group The Infrastructure Forum (Tif).

David Roberts, chief executive at Tif, said: "One thing that has been awakened in large organisations is the power which large vendors can exercise.

"Now, that is on the agenda as a risk. Companies will be developing strategies to manage this risk down."

In the short term, companies will accept the new licensing programme, but will slim down their dependence on Microsoft, according to Roberts.

"In reality for large organisations the total cost increase is small in terms of the annual cost of doing business. They are resigned to having to pay more," he said.

And longer term, companies will make themselves less dependent. "There is an unhealthy lack of competition from the customer's point of view," explained Roberts.

"But it's a four year strategy or so. If you have 5,000 desktops internationally you can't suddenly change the build."

But he added that the changes are forcing companies to abandon the idea of a standard desktop.

"The volumes they are signing up for are only a percentage of their total current Microsoft estate," he said.

"The sensible choice of making sure that every PC has the same build is being shown as uneconomical, so organisations are going for a library of different desktop builds and enabling departments to have the functionality they really need."

Roberts indicated that the priorities for Tif members are desktop strategies, measuring the value of IT and relationships with vendors.

Microsoft's licensing manager Sue Page said: "We need to wait and see. We are conscious that we have to make people confident that they made the right choice in choosing Microsoft."