Microsoft is currently on the road to the first, and only, Beta of Windows 7 according to Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group. However, efforts are also directed onto advancing Windows Vista, with Service Pack 1 made available in mid-March 2008, and with Service Pack 2 development milestone bits having shipped to selected testers, and made available for download. However, even in the proximity of Windows 7, reportedly due for RTM in mid-2009, customers are moving to Windows Vista. One illustrative example in this context is the city of Miami, according to Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team.

James Osteen, assistant director of the City of Miami's IT Department, revealed that the City's IT Department would migrate no less than 900 machines to Windows Vista, by the end of August 2008. Osteen explained that Vista was chosen because of the benefits the operating system can deliver in a range of aspects.

“Cost savings are becoming increasingly important to our operations with the current economic downturn. We are constantly asked to perform higher levels of service with fewer dollars, and in today's economy this has become even more important. The $1M in mainframe cost savings plus the $80K in power savings alone make this project a no-brainer (not to mention that reducing our carbon footprint is extremely important to us in Florida),” Osteen stated.

Moving to Vista means for Osteen embracing an operating system that delivers enhanced security, reliability and robustness, while, at the same time, helping reduce costs and the impact on the environment. Osteen has especially praised Vista for its stability over a testing period of 10 months. Not even the rapidly-approaching Windows 7 was capable of changing the city's adoption plans of Windows Vista.

“The impact of Windows 7 on our decision to move forward was zero. We replace 20% of our desktop/laptop inventory on an annual basis, so that means that desktops we place in production today could have a production life of 5 years... we can't afford to stand still and be rooted in the past. In making our decision to deploy Windows Vista now, we looked more at the immediate benefits that Windows Vista can currently provide our environment - such as cost savings, security, reliability - those factors made the decision an easy one,” Osteen stated.