Microsoft needs a substantial hit in Windows 7 to counteract quarters of declining revenues as well as Windows Vista’s unpopularity. Some analysts say that a tech refresh centered on Windows 7 is in the cards for many SMBs and the enterprise, but interviews conducted by eWEEK suggest that adoption may not be immediate nor wholehearted on everyone’s part.
This hesitation seems to stem from a couple of issues.
The first is cost. In the midst of a massive global recession, firms have been paring down their IT budgets and are less inclined to spend on a tech refresh. This has led to a dip in PC sales that has caused a ripple effect in Microsoft’s cash flow: For the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, Redmond reported that its year-over-year revenues had declined 17 percent.
The second reason for hesitation about Windows 7 relates to the legacy of Windows Vista, whose memory requirements, security issues and lack of backward compatibility with many Windows XP applications left many users feeling bruised. In turn, many of those users elected to stay with Windows XP and their old PCs, which by 2008 had an industrywide average age of 6.1 years, according to a report issued in July by Deutsche Bank.
“I wish I had never seen Vista,” said Gerry Heimann of Raytheon, a major defense contractor. “I have removed it and returned to XP, SP3 and my old version of Office.”
Heimann wanted to make it clear that his views were his own and not Raytheon’s. That said, Heimann has no intention of embracing Windows 7 and Office 2010 as they stand now.
“I will never switch to Windows 7 or Office 10 unless Microsoft does a better job at creating a product that is user-friendly and improves the overall experience,” Heimann said. “Vista has been a very unrewarding product and an uncalled-for cost.”
In his frustration, Heimann is “looking very hard at moving to Apple,” adding that Windows 7 and Office 2010 will present a potential value only if the products prove faster and easier for him to use than their previous iterations.
Other administrators who skipped Vista plan to upgrade to Windows 7. Among their number is Raymond McKay, a network/telecom manager for the MIS division of Warwick, RI. Early reports about the new operating system, as well as in-house testing of the pre-release product, left him “with a much better feeling about Windows 7 than Vista.”
McKay’s office didn’t embrace Vista the first time around for a number of reasons, including budget and known driver issues for many of McKay’s then-current machines.
“Also, we are an Active Directory shop,” said McKay, “and did not see the need to upgrade the servers just to manage the new OS.”
The jump from Windows XP to Windows 7, which will require a clean install and the backup of user information onto servers, is something that McKay has been planning out for some time. The initial steps of the Windows 7 upgrade will involve performing desktop refreshes with machines where the new operating system is pre-installed, before porting the new operating system onto some pre-existing machines.
It will be a substantial undertaking, but also an important one: McKay’s desktops are aging, and the lack of a system refresh for 18 months has made an upgrade a necessity.
New Features Could Drive Tech Refresh in Academic World
There are some new features in Windows 7 that could drive a tech refresh in the academic world.
Jeff Dozier, a professor of environmental science and management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told eWEEK that Windows 7’s improved start-up and especially its 64-bit capabilities are increasingly important within his enterprise.
“I run MATLAB,” Dozier said, referring to a fourth-generation computing language, “and sometimes memory is limited with 32-bit version.”
In addition to allowing his organization to run a 64-bit version of MATLAB and SQL Server Express, Dozier sees Windows 7 as offering several other key features, including granular user-account control. “For my normal account on my laptop, I can make it a Standard account and have the option to provide a password when I need Admin features.”
Windows 7’s Libraries feature is also appealing to Dozier.
“My logical organization of folders and files need not correspond to the physical organization,” said Dozier, who tested the new operating system after the Release Candidate 2 was released. “I synch with a set of folders on the file system where I work.”
While he plans a move to Windows 7, Dozier said he liked Vista and isn’t sure why it was so widely derided.
“I’m not sure why Vista was so maligned,” Dozier said. “I find that I adapt to new features and UIs pretty easily– although then I sometimes forget about old versions when people ask me for help. In Vista I found the Synchronization feature to be improved over XP’s.”
SMBs are in the same position as the enterprise and academic institutions for a tech refresh; but with the economy continuing to squeeze IT budgets, they may find themselves reluctant to engage in a system upgrade that includes Windows 7.
“Most of the offices I know are now using XP,” said Judith Freed, an office manager for a small periodontal office in Los Angeles. “When their dental programs come up with a new version that needs a new OS, they will go with what is supported, be it Vista or [Windows 7].” However, “using new software means staff downtime for training and confusion for a while as staff learns, so no one is very eager.”
In her experience, Freed said, Vista was a relatively secure operating system.
“I put all the computers I am responsible for behind both software and hardware firewalls and experiment with various anti-virus and anti-spam products,” she said. “I have rarely had a problem, and the few times that a user has opened something up and let the devil loose, it is usually just on that computer and up until now has been caught.”
Freed said she plans to wait before refreshing her systems with Windows 7, which she had been reading about but not yet tested: “I will wait a bit and let others catch all the bugs and problems, then get a new computer with it loaded. I will probably opt for Pro.”
Massive Refresh?
Massive Refresh?
A July report by Deutsche Bank suggested that companies will engage in a massive tech refresh once Windows 7 is released on Oct. 22, with an accompanying uptick in revenue for hardware and software vendors within the Microsoft ecosystem.
“Initial industry feedback and the results of our proprietary CIO survey indicate that a faster user take-up than [for] the highly successful Windows XP is likely,” said the report’s executive summary. “The resulting upgrade cycle could develop into a powerful revenue driver benefitting both software and hardware plays globally.”
Deutsche Bank surveyed 120 IT buyers around the world. The resulting data suggested that Windows 7 would penetrate the market faster than Windows XP or Windows 2000. About 34 percent of respondents said they intended to deploy Windows 7 either immediately upon its release or “relatively early”–within 12 to 18 months after its release. In comparison, it took a full two years for Windows XP and Windows 2000 to reach a 35 percent penetration level.
Other data concerning Windows 7 adoption has not been quite so rosy, perhaps in keeping with the ambivalence noted by some eWEEK interviewees.
A survey by ScriptLogic, also released in July, suggested that six out of 10 companies would avoid purchasing Windows 7 upon its October debut. Out of the 1,000 companies surveyed, 5.4 percent planned to have the operating system integrated into their IT infrastructure by the end of 2009, while another 34 percent planed to be on board with the operating system by December 2010.
Of those surveyed, 35 percent cited the economy as a major factor in their decision to hold off on immediately upgrading to Windows 7, while 42 percent said their primary reason was “lack of time and resources.”
Whether or not the economy picks up enough for those opinions to swing around, Microsoft has planned an aggressive push for Windows 7, centered on massive price cuts and promotional offers. (The company is also touting a Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program for those who purchase PCs preinstalled with Vista before the new operating system’s release). In 2008, a third of the company’s revenue, or roughly $20 billion, came from sales of Windows.
Needing to boost its sagging revenues, as well as fend off operating-system competition from both Apple and Google, Microsoft needs Windows 7 to be quickly and generously embraced by both SMBs and the enterprise. But as the launch date approaches, it is still unclear whether those groups will embrace the new Windows OS, hang on to older Windows systems or evaluate a different OS provider altogether.