Eye on Microsoft
About this Blog:
This is Shane O'Neill's blog about Microsoft's corporate strategy and its various software and services — the good, the bad and the ugly.
Who Will Be the Windows 7 Early Adopters?
It's no easy task to pinpoint who will jump to Windows 7 early. Given the economic uncertainty, nearly all companies in all sectors are reconsidering their IT budgets, say industry analysts.
Roger Kay, president of tech research firm Endpoint Technologies, says that smaller, more flexible organizations are more prone to early Windows 7 deployment.
"The most nimble companies will adopt first, and these firms tend to be smaller," Kay says, adding that only the most agile large enterprise will move to Windows 7 early.
Directions on Microsoft analyst Michael Cherry says that the positive feedback on Windows 7 has eased the compatibility and performance fears that still hover over Vista, yet he doesn't see any industries preparing for a wholesale deployment of Windows 7 on all computers.
"I hear concerns about planning and getting approval for an OS upgrade when budgets are being reduced as companies address the current economic situation," Cherry says.
Such is the case for IT professional, Chris Rapp, director of technology for 100 employees at a branch of Sovereign Bank. He says the benefits of moving to Windows 7 have to be very substantial or the executives at the bank will not pay for it in this economy. "I foresee us not moving to Windows 7 until at least the first service pack is issued ... it's a budget thing."
But Kay adds that some companies may warm up to Windows 7 and deploy before SP1 even if they planned to wait.
"Because the code is much more stable than Vista, corporate adoption before SP1 will likely be higher than normal for a Windows launch."
Cherry says that he sees no indication of who will be early adopters because nearly everyone is re-evaluating IT budgets. But he agrees with Kay that we may be hearing less of the common refrain "We'll wait for SP1" with Windows 7.
"That's probably because many people see Windows 7 as an update of Vista with a new name," he says.
What about you? Will you deploy Windows 7 early, gradually or never?
Previous Post: Apple's 'Laptop Hunter' Response Plays Virus Card, Avoids Price IssueNext Post: Microsoft Doesn't Quit: Redmond Goes for Broke with Bing and Zune
What is Tech Briefcase?
TechBriefcase is a new, free service where IT Professionals can Search, Store and Share IT white papers and content like this. Learn more
Bookmark content
Speed up your research efforts with content across the web.
Search and Store
Find the white papers you need. Create folders for any topic.
View Anywhere
Open your briefcase on your iPhone, tablet or desktop. Share with colleagues.
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
