Macawber Beekay Pvt Ltd are experts in pneumatic conveying. Combining the need of environmental pollution control with energy conservation, Macawber Beekay’s unique Dense Phase Pneumatic Conveying systems offer solutions to the bulk material handling problems of core sectors-power, cement, steel, chemicals, and more.
“We’ve deployed Windows Vista on 30 computers at present for our designing operations; the rest of the systems run XP Professional. Sooner or later we would have to deploy Vista, so why not now? Early deployment would help our workforce get accustomed to working with Vista.
Gautam Gupta,Executive Director,Macawber Beekay Pvt Ltd
Going by our working experience with Vista, it has an excellent GUI,
and improved connectivity and security features
“Windows Vista has a number of positive aspects. Better connectivity and security options are a couple of reasons for its early deployment. We use licensed applications such as the Microsoft Office suite for our daily operations. As a result, we never face any compatibility issues.
“According to the information we have, Vista-ready versions, support, and drivers for software applications and hardware will be soon rolled out to complement Vista. We are aware of the issues and bugs being discovered, but we have not had any problems at our end. Since Vista is in its nascent stage after the recent release, Microsoft will get it fixed and provide solutions.
“Going by our working experience with Vista, it has an excellent GUI, and improved connectivity and security features. The outcome of the last 45 to 50 days has been stable with our operations and work processes. However, it is too early now to comment upon its overall stability and performance. Our employees have given positive feedback of their experience.
“We recommend migrating to Windows Vista to other business undertaking because of the GUI, security features, and several other features-drive encryption is one of them. In the near future, they will all have to use Vista. Besides that, the use of original and licensed applications is advised with Vista, since drivers and support for third-party applications is yet to be provided.”
Certain software are not yet Vista-compatible
TCE Consulting operates mainly in the Power and Infrastructure sector. In the Power sector, they offer services and products for Thermal, Combined Cycle, Hydro, Diesel Generators, and Transmission & Distribution. In the Infrastructure domain, they offer services for urban and rural development, roads and bridges, water supply, waste water, IT Parks, hotels, and more.
“We still are using earlier versions of Windows such as XP, 2000, and even Windows 98 for our designing, accounting, and other computational purposes. Those systems are currently serving our needs.
“For designing purposes, 70 per cent of our systems are used for basic-level designing purposes, which can be done with low-end systems as well. The rest of the systems are used for high-end designing.
Aneesh Joseph, Officer, Systems, TEC Consulting Engineers Ltd
Compatibility issues and the cost of migration to Vista-supported
hardware are the prime reasons why we want to wait
“We are aware of Vista’s launch and we did install an original copy on one of our systems for testing purposes. We found that certain applications such as design applications and accounting software are not yet compatible with Vista.
“The majority of designing applications and software packages like AutoCAD, STAD Pro, and PDMS are functional on XP, but support on Vista is not available. Also, Vista did not support certain anti-virus software packages and a few of our in-house design applications.
“Secondly, the hardware in the systems we use ranges from Pentium III to Pentium IV for normal systems and the workstations. If we shift to Vista, we will have the cost of hardware migration like adding graphic cards and RAM.
“Compatibility issues and the cost of migration to Vista-supported hardware are the prime reasons why we want to wait for at least the next eight to 12 months.
“Migrating to Vista is not recommendable at this point of time. The lack of Vista-ready versions of applications, adequate support for those, and the likely heavy cost of migration are the prevailing issues. Deploying Vista at this stage might disrupt current projects and activities.” As told to Samir Makwana