As a Microsoft product integrator we have seen Windows 7 being embraced by big business. Most companies, rightly, skipped Vista and are now on XP. The downside to not upgrading to Vista is that it has been painful for most organizations to go from XP to Win7 due to application compatibility and lack of properly maintained or implemented infrastructure. The most difficult part of an OS migration is how to handle applications. When going to XP to Win7, many organizations are having to deal with not only an OS upgrade but also an architecture (x86 to x64) change. What applications do we have? What applications are Win7 compatible? How do we deliver the applications? How do we maintain our application portfolio? Are we properly licensed? How do we maintain our licenses? The list goes on and on. Many new technologies are also being implemented with most Win7 migrations as well. Application and desktop virtualization, application and OS delivery (SCCM, etc), AD health and architecture, Citrix, DirectAccess, hardware and software asset management, etc. It is quite the daunting task for most organizations to get their heads around how to architect, remediate, and/or implement these techonologies. What I expect to happen is that most organizations are going to want to upgrade with every OS going forward. They have the mechanisms in place to handle it and they will want to constantly improve their environment so that they do not have to go through this kind of technological overhaul ever again. It is much easier to maintain these environments and continuously upgrade them as necessary rather than to do it all at once. It also opens up quite a bit of opportunity for vendors like mine. We manage these projects and most of our clients want us to stay on and continue to maintain their environments. It is difficult for companies to find the kind of expertise that we can provide.
I promise you, Microsoft does not envision Windows 8 to be a consumer only OS. We are still at least a year (I would put money on longer) from seeing an RTM version of Windows 8. I fully expect it to release no earlier than the second half of 2013, if not 1st quarter of 2014. This will put it right in line with the end of life for XP. Windows 7 had a massive marketing campaign. Windows 8 will be pimped just as hard.
businesses have no choice but to use an OS from Microsoft. what else are they going to use? switch to an OS with 5% marketshare and expect all their vendors to rewrite all the programs? hospitals in the medical center are now upgrading to win 7. the hold up is usually some critical application incompatibility.
Excellent point about the applications. We faced the same challenges (and continue to see these with every OS release and service pack). We work very closely with out internal app teams to provide them with a preview of our custom OS so they can get cranking on testing and keep a scorecard on their progress. When our Windows 8 release is ready I expect we will aggressively begin upgrading our Win7 fleet. As an example, we deployed Win7 to 90,000 people in the company within 16 months ot having our build ready. Members or our team will be at the Microsoft Management Summit this year to actually present on this topic.
Replace Windows with OS X and put that in an Apple thread and Pizza and Cowboy would be crapping all over his post. I have no problem with the enthusiasm but the irony is astounding.
I feel like an idiot but it's asking for a product key when I'm installing it. I tried the win 7 key I have on the laptop but it's not working. The page posted a few back didn't have any keys on it.
Try this: DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J It's on the download page, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso
I guess I'm seeing something different than you. Enterprises don't want to train their users on another operating system that early. I'm sure there will be some companies that migrate but I don't see big customers moving until Microsoft forces them to. It just costs too much money and resources. Also, companies are now on a 5 year hardware refresh cycles. Since a lot of companies did there upgrade in the last year with Windows 7, it will be 5 years before they make a big move again.
Read my post above about our Win7 deployment. Also, our hardware refresh cycle is only 2 years. We are a big customer with approximately 250,000 workstations in our fleet with the majority of those on Win7. I'd say training our users on the OS isn't as big a priority as app compatibility. The OS is just a means to leverage your data or apps and soon enough we may allow employees to use their own hardware once apps and data are decoupled from the workstation and hosted in the cloud.
Yeah, they do pretty well. Again, if/when we get a VDI and data cloud built out the refresh rate goes out the window as we will start allowing employees to participate in a BYOPC model. That will have a huge impact on our workstation landscape. If anyone here attends MMS2012 this year check out the topic: Extreme MDT: Deploying 90,000 Windows 7 Workstations in 16 Months
I agree with this. Obviously it varies depending on the company and maybe it's different with those with the resources to make widespread changes across a large landscape, but from my experience working with small to medium sized businesses (which is still a large presence as a whole) it's not easy to get them to make a large transition on a short cycle (despite our direction). We are a small company ourselves so we have a different perspective I suppose, but I don't really think that what I've seen from various CEOs and business owners is necessarily unique. And that's just at the resources level. Moving on to proprietary applications that some of these places run is another discussion altogether.
I've been a Windows user forever. If 8 is actually better than Mac then well and good. I'm still planning on getting an MBP by the end of the year so we'll see what happens. Also, I'm impressed with the iPad. So many possibilities. As for the MBP, it will be as a gift for me when I finish my review Spoiler
The new one, the one they call cloud 2.0, is so much better in many ways. Still, it can be a pain at times.
My company still uses XP and will roll out Windows 7 near the end of the 3rd quarter. One of the software programs we use still isn't compatible with 7 yet. I doubt we'll ever get Windows 8.
I have it on good authority that Windows 8, Server 8 and Windows Phone 8 will be out well before the 2012 holiday season. I just ordered an Acer Iconia W500 tablet to try out the consumer preview... I wanted the Samsung Series 7, but didn't want to pay the cost for a "last gen" device. I'll upgrade when the Windows 8 tablets hit the market.
