Corporate reseller targets two-thirds of European firms yet to migrate to Vista with application packaging service

SCC is launching an application packaging service designed to improve the speed and ease with which companies can make the switch to Windows Vista.

The corporate reseller’s ‘Software Lifecycle Management’ service is supported by product developer Changebase's Total AOK software and offers Vista compatibility testing for applications. It is designed to detect and fix any incompatibility issues. It will be sold directly by SCC and also through Changebase's reseller partners.

Chris Hall, SCC's transformation programme manager, said: "We will be targeting all of our corporate customers and our SMEs as well. The impetus for launching this service is two-fold. Firstly, we want to help companies control costs and, secondly, we want to give them the ability to migrate to Vista more easily."

SCC initiated the partnership with Changebase to try and profit from the two thirds of European businesses yet to move to Vista. Gartner research has indicated that, in many cases, such a move could take up to 18 months to complete.

Changebase chief executive John Tate claimed that for a company running 300 applications, the cost of switching to Vista could run to £1m. He said: "The switch could mean armies of people doing months and months of manual work. We can cut that down from months to weeks.

"It does mean companies are going to have to restructure, and it could be that many of the technical staff will not have much to do. This is one reason why we have encountered some resistance to this - much like the industrial revolution, when workers were very wary of spinning jennys.”