Complex migration causes setbacks to Office 2010 deployment

Research commissioned by Dell Kace reveals that majority of firms are holding off upgrading until next year

Hold up: IT professionals are concerned with the complexity of the software

Many IT professionals are holding off until next year before implementing Office 2010, research commissioned by Dell Kace has claimed.

Of 953 IT professionals around the globe questioned by research house Dimensional Research on behalf of Dell Kace, 85 per cent of those revealed they plan to adopt the software, but concerns around complexity of migrating to the new software will cause delays.

Only four per cent have fully deployed Office 2010 and 18 per cent plan to broadly deploy the software this year.

The survey also revealed that the main concerns of migration include training for the new ribbon interface, compatibility with current applications and licensing.

Rob Meinhardt, co-founder of Dell Kace, said: “The results of our latest survey reinforce what we are hearing from customers, that the complexity of supporting multiple versions of Microsoft Office and the concerns over business interruption during the migration process have caused IT organisations to delay deployment.”

Diane Hagglund, senior research analyst for Dimensional Research, said: “IT organisations of all sizes are looking to upgrade to Office 2010 eventually, but they want to be assured that the transition process occurs as smoothly as possible. At this time it seems that migration concerns are outweighing confidence of a speedy Office 2010 migration.”