Businesses Find That Win 7 Saves Time, Money

Windows 7 launches in all mainstream markets tomorrow, but some organizations have been using the new OS for quite some time now. After all, the finalized RTM code has been floating around since July.

Interestingly, early adopters in the enterprise space are already seeing appreciable gains from the new OS, finding that Windows 7 saves both time and money. (Considering the belief that time is money, then does that mean that Windows 7 saves money and money?)

Saving money:
As described in a Computerworld report, Pella Corp., a window and door maker in Des Moines, used the group policy controls in Windows 7 to help better manage power use. By using group policy features, the company noticed significant power savings. In fact, the company's IT director conservatively estimated that the use of Windows 7 will result in about $20,000 in annual power savings once the OS is deployed fully throughout the business.

Saving time:
Energizer, the battery company with that pink bunny, has been running a Windows 7 pilot program. Randy Benz, CIO of Energizer, said Windows 7 boots up about 80 percent faster than XP.

"We're seeing a radical change from what we're experiencing with XP," said Benz. "My pet peeve is boot-up time with XP. It seems the longer you use it, the worse it gets."

Other IT managers pointed out that new screen management capabilities, such as Aero Peek and other taskbar features, could also help call center employees cut down on time spent per call.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • Shnur
    yeah I was actually really looking into our company adopting it... although it's still not awesome to make it run on P4's.... which is what my company uses as computers... interesting to see in the long term though.
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    This is funny since it looks and works esentially the same as vista
    Reply
  • outacontrolpimp
    "We're seeing a radical change from what we're experiencing with XP," said Benz. "My pet peeve is boot-up time with XP. It seems the longer you use it, the worse it gets."

    the longer you use windows 7 the slower it gets too :(
    Reply
  • skine
    Shnuryeah I was actually really looking into our company adopting it... although it's still not awesome to make it run on P4's.... which is what my company uses as computers... interesting to see in the long term though.You could follow IBM's lead and switch to Ubuntu.
    Reply
  • Aoster87
    I just hope my college's computer labs running Pentium D / Core 2 machines will finally switch out of XP.
    Reply
  • Honis
    If only I could get my company to upgrade...
    Reply
  • ricardok
    I'm on 7 since the beta came out. The boot time does deteriorate just like XP/Vista, but way slower. On XP you would have to do a fresh install every 8 to 12 months. On vista, every 15 to 18 months. On 7? Well, not so sure yet.
    I've been on RTM since it came out (yes, I did use the 180 days trick) and I'm seeing the boot time increasing every time I change something on the software side. The more you play around the slower the system gets.
    Overall? I'm pretty satisfied with Win7 because it's not as bulky as my Vista (notebook), it's as fast as it were when I was on XP (desktop) and 7 kept all the good things Vista had to offer (security wise).

    Win7 will be out tomorrow but I'm still not buying. I need a family pack but we don't have it here in Brazil. :(
    Reply
  • cryogenic
    I was on Win 7 beta since january, and switched to RTM one month ago, the boot time dind't deteriorate at all, in any kind of way ... although I've picked up the habit of rebooting once about once a month, compared to XP.

    And I do have plenty (a ton) of shit on my PC, ranging from development tools to media authoring tools like Photoshop, games, game utilities and allot more ...



    Reply
  • warmon6
    apache_livesThis is funny since it looks and works esentially the same as vistaIt's what under the hood that make's windows 7 great compared to vista.
    Reply
  • Drag0nR1der
    "group policy controls in Windows 7 to help better manage power use." our company already does something similar using XP... all the machines remotely shut-off at a certain time after work to ensure no-one leaves it on (which is a pain when you set a render goign and forget about this I can tell you...)
    Reply