As Bill Gates prepares to leave Microsoft tomorrow (Friday), the firm has received a vote of confidence from IT leaders questioned by Computing.

The supplier’s server and desktop platforms remain the choice for many IT decision-makers because of their mature development, deployment, management and interoperability features.

Banking group Citi uses a wide range of suppliers for server applications, but is an avid consumer of “everything Microsoft has ever written”, said the firm’s chief information officer Robin Young.

“When it comes to server applications, there is no single contender that will be able to knock out Microsoft,” said Young.

“Desktop software such as Open Office removes the need to pay licence fees and provides the possibility of doing development work, but there are a lot of advantages to Microsoft, such as guarantees for security patches,” he said.

"If we had another choice, would I personally try and do something different? Maybe. But it would also be very difficult to establish which alternatives to use. ”

Domino’s Pizza is another proponent of Microsoft’s products, specifically its range of business intelligence (BI) applications, said IT director Jane Kimberlin.

“We are very excited about the direction Microsoft has taken in BI and hope it will put more support and development behind it.”

Domino’s uses Office for its interoperability and ease of use, even though open source applications could mean initial cost savings, said Kimberlin.

She said Microsoft should beware of niche players.

“It should also be very careful with its licensing cost model. There may be some future nervousness about the concept of ‘all eggs in one basket’,” she said.