The upgrade and migrate shuffle

Mar 28, 2009 12:15 GMT  ·  By

When two is a crowd, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP will suffocate the market, with all three operating systems available concomitantly, albeit XP will be the most handicapped of the three, but still up for grabs, and even available through downgrade options. When it launched Vista, Microsoft told customers that it was time to get off XP. When it offered Service Pack 1 for Vista, the Redmond company gave the market, perhaps the first time with Vista, an actual alternative to XP. The release of SP3 in 2008 did nothing for the soon to be decade-old operating system, although it was long overdue following the launch of XP SP2 in 2004. With Windows 7 on the horizon expect a reinvigorated “get off XP” refrain.

Simply because, just as XP was Vista's biggest rival, it will also be the most consistent barrier in the way of Windows 7 grabbing audience. And just as Vista had to erode XP in order to increase its market share, so will Windows 7 need to convert not only XP, but also Vista users to grow its installed base. Fact is that neither Mac OS X nor Linux are in danger of seeing their respective share of the market converted to Windows 7. The battle is however over existing Windows users and new consumers, especially from emerging countries, one between Linux and Windows, and in which the latter has the upper hand.

In a research note published earlier this month, Gartner indicates that getting off Windows XP is the true priority, with Windows Vista vs. Windows 7 having less relevance. Gartner's vision is obviously tailored to businesses and not to the general public. Still, there are points valid for both target groups. One of them is: if you skipped Vista altogether don't be so fast as giving yourself a pat on the back.

“Although Microsoft remains circumspect about its target date for the release of the new OS, we expect Windows 7 will likely be released to manufacturing in September 2009 or earlier so it can be preinstalled on new PCs available in store shelves by November. As the release of Windows 7 nears and the beta version garners good reviews for performance and stability, more organizations are beginning to question current Windows Vista deployment plans,” revealed Gartner's Michael A. Silver.

Windows 7, Vista and XP for end users “For the most part, users want to run applications, not OSs. As long as the client OS is secure, stable and manageable, provides efficient access to the resources and runs their applications, users don't care that much what the OS is,” Silver explained. Secure, stable, manageable, delivering increased performance, as well as a high level of hardware and software compatibility, and comfortable, let's not forget comfortable, is how Windows XP is perceived. This is the reason why over 63% of all Windows users are still on XP, according to Net Applications, and why, more than two years after the launch of Windows Vista, only approximately 23% of users embraced the new operating system.

But make no mistake about it. Windows 7 is no Windows Vista. It's Windows Vista R2, and Windows 6.1, but not Vista. It's meant to be evolutionary, not revolutionary, and the addition of a .1 to the version number is a clear indication of this. Users moving away from Windows XP will have plenty of innovation to adapt to in Windows 7. Those upgrading from Vista, considerably less. Still, Microsoft will support upgrades for both operating system releases. No word yet on those still stuck with Windows XP. Compared to moving to Vista, upgrading to Windows 7 will be a process benefiting from mature software and hardware ecosystems, with users bound to hit less compatibility and support issues.

“More than five times as many users will run the beta version for Windows 7 as ran the beta for Windows 95. More importantly, the instrumentation by which Microsoft will get data back on performance and software features did not exist when Windows 95 was in beta and is significantly improved compared with what was available with Windows 2000,” Silver said in another report, which advised that there was no need to wait for Windows 7 SP1 in order to embrace the operating system. “This enables Microsoft not only to receive more data, but also to characterize and classify the problems, and work with vendors responsible for a large number of the problems to fix them before the product ships.”

In the end, Upgrade licenses will only truly serve users who are already running Vista-capable hardware. Windows 7 will not perform miracles of speed and usability on XP-tailored hardware configurations that failed to accommodate Vista properly. Also, users should not expect hardware or software that failed to play nice with Vista, to start working miraculously with Windows 7.

At the same time, it is important for end users to understand that no matter how hard they have embraced Windows XP, it will be time to let go. This as ISVs (independent software vendors) and IHVs (independent hardware vendors) will start cutting support for the operating system. There are already machines available to the public that no longer support Windows XP. With the availability of Windows 7 the market's focus will shift even more away from the operating system launched in 2001. Even people building their own machines from components or from system builders will find it increasingly hard to stay with XP, as the lack of drivers will not allow them to fully take advantage of the hardware.

Show me the $, price can be the deal breaker But in the end it will come down to money. The exacerbated economic conditions are taking a heavy toll on IT budgets, and financial resources even for home users are limited. I sincerely feel that it will be unrealistic for Microsoft to come out with Windows 7 prices at the same level as those for Windows Vista. Let me make it perfectly clear, $259.95 for a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium ($259.95 was the original price tag for a full retail license of Windows Vista Home Premium) is too much. $319.95 for a full retail license of Windows 7 Ultimate is too much, $319.95 was the initial estimated retail price for Vista Ultimate.

Microsoft has yet to announce the official prices for the lineup of Windows 7 SKUs, but they should in no way mirror, or even come close to those of Vista editions. After all, Vista was in development for over five years and ended up costing Microsoft in excess of $6 billion. With Windows 7 being an evolution of Windows Vista, Win 7 edition prices need to be an “involution” of Vista's.

Windows 7, Vista and XP for businesses

“Support for any Windows version is finite, and organizations will have to migrate off it eventually,” Silver stated. “As Windows has matured, it has become increasingly difficult for Microsoft to innovate or introduce sufficient new features so that organizations can truly see a return on investment for the money spent on the migration to a new OS. Yet, OS standardization matters greatly to the cost and complexity of management/security. Organizations must eliminate older OSs and move to newer ones to ensure support of the OS and the independent software vendor (ISV) applications that need to be run. Therefore, deciding which version of Windows to run will have less to do with the value provided by the new OS, and more to do with reducing risks and minimizing the cost to test and deploy the new OS.”

Organizations that have migrated to Vista just a couple of years ago via Software Assurance will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 via their respective agreements with Microsoft. With proper hardware in place across their infrastructures, the move from Vista to Windows 7 should be consistently smoother than that from XP to Vista. But business customers need to understand that taking advantage of new features such as BrandCache and Direct Access means that they will also have to migrate to Windows Server 2008 R2 in parallel with the adoption of the Windows 7 client.

Software Assurance also implies that customers have access to solution accelerators such as the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and components including Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V), with version 4.6 tailored to Windows 7. In this context, Microsoft feels that while businesses no longer have to wait for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 in order to upgrade, they will also no longer need 12- to 18-month-long planning cycles, as revealed by Christopher Ross, responsible for field strategy and Partner enablement in support of Windows and Office platform deployment and adoption by US-based enterprise customers.

“I don’t agree [with the 12- to 18-month] timeline assertion [for Windows 7 migration], as I believe that we can significantly decrease that planning and piloting time if we are diligent in taking action now. It’s about desktop optimization and the benefits it returns to the business. As good as Windows 7 RTM will be, we know that it’s not about the OS alone. Know the IT benefits (compatibility, performance, security) and ROI (energy savings, virtualization) and factor those into your decisions. Pilot Windows 7. Assess your hardware profile and PC refresh plans against the hardware requirements for Vista/Win7. If you own the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), ask your Microsoft account team or Partner for assistance in piloting MED-V and APP-V as ways to decrease deployment and management costs while addressing compatibility concerns,” Ross explained.

For organizations still running Windows XP, Gartner advises that migrations should already be in deployment ahead of 2012, a date which the market analysis firm sees as synonymous with support from hardware and software vendors shrinking considerably for Windows XP. Microsoft still plans to support XP with security updates until April 14, 2014, but Gartner warns that hardware and software manufacturers will not be as loyal to the operating system as the Redmond company. And in the context in which XP's market share will evaporate, support is bound to follow.

“Skipping Windows Vista puts significant pressure on the organization to execute a subsequent migration to Windows 7 in a relatively short time frame. Therefore, organizations should make a decision quickly, establish a project plan and start preparatory work during 2009. Most companies planning on skipping a version should consider beginning application compatibility testing using the Windows 7 Release Candidate to get an early start on Windows 7 testing. From this standpoint, Windows Vista (or Windows 7 beta and release candidate versions) serves as a good proxy for Windows 7,” Silver stated.

Microsoft is not limiting solution accelerators to its Software Assurance Customers. The Redmond company is already offering Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Beta and the Windows Automated Installation Kit to streamline migrations from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Again, price can be the deal breaker

“Another hurdle to achieving corporate deployment of Windows Vista on new PCs is the weak economy. Economic concerns have resulted in many organizations reducing or delaying PC purchases. The concept of managed diversity depends on the continual refresh of PCs, which has typically been three years for notebooks and four years for desktops. In this economy, PCs are not getting replaced at the rate of 25% to 33% per year, and many organizations are investigating formally increasing the life of the desktop PC to five years and notebooks to four, for at least some users,” Silver said.

As far as businesses are concerned Microsoft needs to deliver consistent cutbacks when it comes down to the Total Cost of Ownership for Windows 7, in order to justify migration costs. Microsoft will have to play hard the hand of long-term TCO reductions to catalyze investments in Windows 7 even for organizations looking to squeeze every last dollar by cutting down IT budgets as much as possible. Proving that, in the long run, Windows 7 will not only contribute to adding value and increasing worker performance and efficiency, but it will also slash expenses, is the sales pitch for Microsoft. Businesses need to be convinced that they will spend less money if they migrate to Windows 7 than if they stick with Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Windows 2000.