Small and medium-sized entities (SME) are said to particularly benefit from shifting from Windows XP to its successor Vista, if they cannot rely upon a fully-grown server structure and if they have many notebooks in use. According to the expert magazine „Computer im Mittelstand” a new tool, the so-called Windows Collaboration, co-ordinates the virtual teamwork of up to ten people without a server. The tool provides a joint desk top featuring a list of participants and indicating the documents handed out.
The new operating system Vista, which will be available next year, will dispose of an improved firewall as compared to its predecessor XP, which will also monitor outgoing data flows. This firewall would provide enhanced security to the notebooks used in the company and would offer a broad range of options for configuration. Furthermore, the feature of a new administration console will enable the setting up of rules and exceptions for applications, ports, users, computers, IP-addresses and interfaces. The console would also offer the possibility of configurations via remote control to companies with de-centralised work groups.
New user accounts would not automatically be equipped with administrator rights, but only limited ones. However, these rights would be sufficient enough as to enable automatic updates of e.g. the Acrobat Reader without problems.
The reason for which a shift to a new operating system cannot be avoided at least in the long run is described in the article “Windows 98 and ME reduce creditworthiness”. 