Level Four Software Ltd. is warning ATM operators
to not jump too quickly on the Windows Vista bandwagon.
Microsoft has been touting the substantial benefits businesses will
achieve with Windows Vista, said Martin Macmillan, Level Four’s
business-development director. But for ATM deployers, whose transition
from OS/2 is still and in some cases ongoing, the benefits of yet
another systems overhaul should be questioned and strategically gauged.
The move to Windows NT/XP was the catalyst for creating an open
standards ATM environment, Macmillan said, offering banks greater
possibilities to separate the proprietary relationship between ATM
hardware and software.
“It cannot be ignored that a transition from the Windows XP operating
system to Windows Vista is a natural evolution that ATM deployers will
eventually implement,” Macmillan said. “Indeed, Vista offers the promise
of greater security and stability and will provide banks with the
opportunity to further enhance customer-service delivery at the ATM.
However, banks must exercise caution in their approach to Vista at such
an early stage in the operating system’s lifecycle.”
Macmillan adds that automated testing solutions that “exhaustively
check” ATM software should be used to address potential faults before
any changes to applications or operating systems are made.
“Banks have already undertaken rigorous testing on their current Windows
platform, now predominantly XP, to improve its stability to control
ATMs,” he said. “While Vista is still in its infancy, it lacks the
maturity and improved reliability that XP now offers for the control of
a mission-critical banking device.”
Macmillan said ATM deployers are likely to be reluctant to upgrade to
Vista, since upgrades to XP have been so recent.
“They will benefit from resisting the urge to migrate and allow early
adopters to test Vista and see it proven in the self-service field,” he
said. “For mission-critical banking devices such as ATMs, banks should
adopt a wait and see policy before considering a migration project of
this magnitude.”
