Hey, U.S. corporations: Take a clue from the Aussies. The University of Western Sydney is rolling out a new version of Windows, and it's not the one you think. Yep: They're deploying Vista.

Why go with Vista when Windows 7 is just around the corner? According to Michael Houlahan, the university's IT director, the necessary back-end infrastructure upgrades and application testing were already underway.

"We are aware of Windows 7," Houlahan told ZDNet Australia, "but based on the adage that there is never a good time to carry out a major upgrade like this one, we decided to proceed with Vista given the amount of work we've already put into it."

What's more, there was issue of compatibility--with students. "Many of our students are using Vista on their own computers and we think it more important to achieve alignment with them rather than keep XP any longer than we have to (i.e., by waiting an extra year or so for Windows 7)," Houlahan said.

That echoes reports we've read about IT departments getting complaints from users who have Vista at home and want the same OS on their work machines.

Houlahan also told ZDNet Australia that Windows 7 still has no official release date, and that "most people would say that any new Windows version should be avoided until the release of the first Service Pack."

The University of Western Sydney isn't alone in making this decision. As you may recall, Miami is in the process of deploying Vista city-wide at this very moment.

If it's good enough for these two "organizations" (and countless others, no doubt), perhaps it's time to allow for the possibility that it's good enough for yours as well.