Businesses Don't Need to Wait for Win 7 SP1
The IT departments, any new version of software is an unknown quantity--particularly an operating system.
“The first Service Pack for Windows 7 is not necessary for the operating system's stability and security readiness,” asserted Gartner’s Michael A. Silver. “However, organizations likely won't be ready to deploy Windows 7 before SP1 ships, so they will include it in their initial deployments.
“Windows 7 is an incremental update to Windows Vista, but many independent software vendors (ISVs) will not support their applications running on it for six to 12 months or more. Service Pack 1 (SP1) should be released well before organizations are ready to deploy Windows 7, so they should plan to integrate SP1.”
Silver added that SP1 does not represent the milestone it used to--calling it a “Bogus milestone for OS readiness in general”--and that the bigger beta testing group helps to ensure a more stable and compatible product. The Windows 7 beta is reported to have a testing pool more than five times larger than that of Windows 95.
While overall Windows 7 is regarded as a stable and safe upgrade for businesses, one area that Gartner cautions is the built-in browser. As more companies begin to rely on applications that run from within a browser, the addition of a new version--in this case Internet Explorer 8--adds a completely new layer of compatibility concerns.
In fact, we discovered earlier this week that some users of the new Internet Explorer 8 have reverted back to version 7 for the very reason of compatibility.
I beg to differ.
Maybe for Windows 7 since it's a minor upgrade to Vista (going from NT v6.0 to NT v6.1) but definitely not in general.
is this really news? seriously? I'm sure all those businesses out there will have their IT staff trained any ready for the release of Windows 7 because it is such a ground breaking game changing OS and will help productivity 10 fold.
Gimme a break. Windows 7 will not out Windows XP anymore than Vista did. MS will have to pull the cord on XP before those OS even get looked at.
It might be different, it may have a new Kernel, but Windows XP SP2 and on is a pretty much new kernel from Windows XP SP 1.
Windows 7 is Vista rebranded with a few tweaks. So of course it is just like installing a SP1 or newer version of an OS.
"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."
Oh dear lord. Just because the version has gone from 6.0 to 6.1 does NOT mean it is a minor upgrade. How about you see for yourself whether it is a minor upgrade instead of basing your opinion on an idiotic numbering system.
OS X 10.4 to 10.5 was considered a huge upgrade but I suppose to appease people like you they should have gone from 10.4 to 11.4 as to make it look more a really big update right?
I run Vista Ultimate 64 and love it… I have had some minor problems, but nothing to be upset over.
I agree with gnesterenko, XP is dated. Pick up a new OS and learn it, you’ll be impressed. I am looking forward to the release of Win 7.
Win7 may get some neg reviews... here and there, but overall, its looking good. But you yourself have some minor issues with vista, I don't care to deal with an OS that offers no improved user experince. And yeah, I have used vista... and learn that I don't like it. I'm not impressed with an OS that requires 4GB to do the job of a 1GB XP box. Open a browser, MS-Word, Photoshop, etc... vista is just a launcher for local programs.
I too am looking forward to Win7 and hope its retail version is as good as it should be. With that said, what PCs I built today, have Win7 in mind with 4GB of RAM... even thou I'm still building WinXP boxes.
I can't wait to upgrade to win 7 at work, I'm so horribly tired of XP, ... I'm cringe every day when I have to use XP, especially the lack of integrated search is really killing it (and no, neither Google desktop search or windows desktop search work well enough in XP).
However, business never upgrade straight away ... regardless of what Gartner believes, some of our enterprise clients still run win 2k on some of their machines, and they pretty much stayed away from Vista, my guess is that it will take *some* years before Win 7 is adopted in Business space, although those that "upgraded" to Vista should have more reasons to upgrade to Win 7 than those that stayed with XP
They are the ones who labeled it 6.1 instead of 7.0. If Microsoft themselves say it's a minor upgrade, then it is.
Your Mac OSX reference is not applicable. They (obviously) use a different system. A minor update from them is like going from 10.4 to 10.4.1.
I have used it and I like it.
Why? The majority of workstations of a typical company would mostly consist of low end workstations with not-so-demanding softwares installed. Given how a "leap" in both system requirements and cost from WinXP to Win7, it wouldn't seem economical to most (especially, given the current state of the economy).
What can MS do? For the system requirements, they can't do much (actually, they can, but I don't think they "want" to offer a streamlined Windows). For the price, they certainly can. Of course, it is still up to them. Once they offer it a lot cheaper than the current price, they can't just bring it back up. And being MS, they'd rather keep hoping more will buy an expensive OS rather than be able to actually sell more due to lower cost.
the irony of your statement about low end work stations that can only run xp is that most of those "low end" workstations barely run xp as it, and are probably in need of an upgrade to optimally run xp.
Businesses are not shying away from upgrading because of hardware limitations so much as the stability and support base that is available for an OS. Xp has been around for close to 7 (or so ?) years and has a large support base available. As a result, it is seen as a better business decision since productivity would theoretically not be limited by having to troubleshoot a brand new OS, or teach employees how to use a new operating system.
Most companies (especially ones that are not IT centric) will not be persuaded to upgrade based on the merits of the operating system alone, rather on how easily they can make the transition and how cheaply they can execute the transition from a training and logistics perspective.