Windows 7: pass or fail with the CIOs?

Windows Vista was not a fail, it was a catastrophe. After the good old 98 gave way to the trustworthy XP, the world felt cheated with the introduction of Vista. But with the advent of Oct. 22, as Windows 7 will enter the market, everybody from the home bound geeks to the major CIOs have their eyes open. But are their wallets just as keen?

A recent study conducted by a leading IT website has declared that most CIOs are not ready to roll over to Windows 7, at least for the next one year.

Giving Window 7 a pass
Nicholas Bellenberg, IT director for publisher Hachette Filipacchi, won't be switching to Windows 7 for at least 18 months.

He said, "For heaven's sake, you must be joking [about a 2010 roll out]! We'll look at it and understand it, but I can't think we'll consider this sort of implementation until 2011 at the earliest."

Florentin Albu, ICT manager at Eumetsat (European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) has also decided to give Windows 7 some time to settle down, and is not going to give it a shot till 2011.

The reluctance with incorporating Windows 7 is mixed with reports of most of the companies giving Vista a complete pass.

Schroders CIO Matthew Oakeley said: "2010 is too soon. We would, however, be looking to skip Vista."

The informationweek analytic survey has revealed that only 16 percent of the companies plan to deploy Windows 7 in the first year of its release.

Early adoptions
But all does not look bleak for Microsoft. The car manufacturing giant BMW seems to be highly impressed by Windows 7. Till now, an avid follower of XP, they are planning to give Vista a pass, and upgrade to Windows 7 directly.

Werner Huber, the head of machining operations, has said, “We identified a lot of functional and monetary benefits of Windows 7 early on." BMW had first started testing the Windows 7 beta earlier this year and has increased the number of pilot users since the RTM (release to manufacturing) version of Windows 7 became available in late July.

Sheraton hotels also seems to be optimistic about the new OS as they adopted the windows 7 multi touch technology as early as third week of August by introducing the HP Touch Smart machines in some hotel lobbies.

Apart from this, Windows 7 has also got consistently impressive reviews from the companies who have tested it. Nine of 10 companies rate it around satisfactory, and more than a third say that it is excellent.

Jim Green, CIO of Los Angeles County Public Health, which has about 5,000 PCs, said, "The pervasive view out there is that 7 is probably better than Vista, and I'm buying it." He added that, "We're not applying the old, standard 'wait till SP1' approach. The strategy is to begin upgrading as soon as we can."

Global IT architect Jeff Border, who plans to upgrade to the new OS soon, has sound reasoning behind his decision, which is major cost savings. According to him, imbibing this OS will allow them to not buy new machines, as the old ones can simply be upgraded.

The food giant Del Monte's manager of advanced technology and collaborative services, Jonathan Wynn, also is ready to jump in the boat.

According to him, "If you have a computer that you're using 40 hours a week, and you're traveling with it, and it's easy to use, easy to start up and shut down, easy to find things, and you don't have to become your own little IT people to diagnose your own problems, that's an increase in productivity."

The Windows 7, by now, has gained a good reputation by being much faster than Vista, having a simple clutter-free interface, being light on computer resources, and being highly intuitive. On the other hand, it is being criticized as being the “shadow” version of Vista along with being overpriced.