He wants you... to move to Windows 7

We all want our governments to be more efficient, right? Many United States government offices have plans to do this by moving to Windows 7 within six to twelve months, though some need to jump significant security hurdles first.

A Dell survey of 205 government IT shops found that about 50% of those surveyed had plans to move in a year or less, with another 37% saying that they’d like to make the move in a year or more – most cited new features and functionality as the reason to upgrade. Many are also planning to coordinate the rollout of Windows 7 with the retirement of older Windows XP machines.

By comparison, a July survey of private businesses found that only about a third of enterprises were planning on rolling out Windows 7 within a year of release.

The U.S. government adoption rate, then, looks to be significantly higher. In a blog post, Microsoft’s Teresa Carlson points to the University of New Mexico, the State of Illinois, and the City of Miami in particular as early adopters of the OS.

However, before some agencies can deploy the new OS, a number of security settings need to be reviewed – the Federal Desktop Core Configuration is a list of hundreds of Windows settings that must be tested and approved before OS rollouts can begin. The purpose of the FDCC list is to make PCs more secure and less prone to hacking and malware infection – lists already exist for Windows XP and Windows Vista, but finalizing the Windows 7 list “will take until spring 2010, at least,” according to FDCC program manager Ken Page.

Once the Windows 7 FDCC is finished, government agencies can begin moving on to Microsoft’s latest and greatest – the U.S. Air Force, which just completed its rollout of Windows Vista this past summer, plans to upgrade more than half a million PCs to the new OS.

This is one area of government where your politics don’t matter – if you’re here, it’s safe to say that you want everyone to be using Windows 7, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on.

The U.S. Government and Windows 7 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

One of the major problems that Microsoft did encounter after the release of Windows Vista was that many companies that wanted to switch to the new Microsoft operating system decided to wait until the first service pack for the operating system was released before starting the deployment phase.

Business researchers at Gartner published a paper recently that recommends to deploy Windows 7 without waiting for the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 as it would not be “necessary for the operating system’s stability and security readiness”. Support from independent analysts is something that Microsoft needs to convince organizations and companies that Windows 7 will not be “another” Windows Vista.

The analysts are expecting deployment of Windows 7 to begin 12 to 18 months after its initial release which would most likely mean that the first service pack for Windows 7 would be included in the deployment.

The analysis details several aspects that companies will have to consider in their deployment planning stage. This includes support for the new operating system by independent software vendors as well as other factors like a new version of the Internet Explorer web browser or the declining importance of the first service pack release for a new operating system.

Gartner: Windows 7 SP1 Not Needed For Deployment was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Companies who have not yet made the switch to Windows Vista are in an awkward position. Windows 7 is supposed to come out in late 2009 which would mean that a company skipping Windows Vista would save lots of money when switching right to Windows 7. The costs for testing and deploying Windows Vista and training the staff would fall away and could be added to the budget of the Windows 7 deployment a year later. There are however a few reasons why it might make sense under certain circumstances to switch to Windows Vista instead of waiting for Windows 7.

Companies and businesses not running Windows Vista yet are most likely running a previous version of the Windows operating system. The majority will still run Windows XP. The problem with Windows XP is that the mainstream support phase ends in 2008 and that the extended support phase will begin in 2009. Analysts like Gartner predict that vendor support for Windows XP will begin to wane in the beginning of 2010 which might not be a problem for a company that wants to deploy Windows 7 if the release will be indeed in 2009. Most companies however will not migrate to a new operating system in the first months of its release. The deployment phase usually begins 6-12 months after the initial release. It might be safe to wait on the other hand if no hardware purchases are planned in 2009 / 2010 and that the next hardware purchase and replacement phase begins in 2011 or later.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer voiced his opinion about the success of Windows Vista at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Orlando and gave a few insights about the upcoming Microsoft operating system. He mentioned that Windows 7 would be a major release because Microsoft put more work into it than a minor release would usually receive and that Windows 7 would be Windows Vista but a lot better. The second statement confirms the statements Microsoft made earlier that Windows 7 would have similar hardware requirements as Windows Vista. It could be interpreted that Windows 7 would be indeed more like Windows Vista 2 than a separate major release which Ballmer tried to rebut by pointing out that Windows 7 would be a major release.

Ballmer was also asked why companies should upgrade to Windows Vista instead of waiting for Windows 7. The answer was a diplomatic one, stating that companies could wait if they wanted but that he personally would deploy Windows Vista.

Ballmer On Windows 7 And Windows Vista was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.