Barclays has Microsoft's Longhorn in its sights

Barclays Bank is already planning its desktop upgrades to tie in with the release of Microsoft's next-generation Longhorn Windows operating system.

The bank is currently in the process of refreshing its desktop environment with 41,700 Dell PCs and laptops as part of a seven-year outsourcing agreement with EDS but Kevin Lloyd, CTO at Barclays, told silicon.com that Longhorn is already in the bank's sights.

He said: "The contract allows for a full hardware and software refresh in 2007 to align with Longhorn developments and provides the infrastructure for our Microsoft Sharepoint rollout."

The timetable for the current Dell desktop project is 15 to 18 months and the occupancy of Barclays' new corporate HQ in Canary Wharf in the first quarter of next year will be the major milestone.

Lloyd said the creation of a uniform environment will deliver benefits to the business.

"Value is created, for example, through standardising at desktop and server and placing the whole estate into a commercial, clearer and understood full lifecycle, total cost of ownership and clearer unambiguous service-level agreements."

Lloyd has previously attracted criticism from Linux advocates for his comments in an interview with silicon.com last year where he said Barclays had evaluated Linux and found Microsoft to have a lower TCO. He said many people fail to factor in hardware and software, support, break-fix and refresh costs.