The Redmond software and marketing machine is in full flight at the moment, and the impact on the web is dramatic. Almost all of the press we see has Windows 7 in a good light, and perhaps quite rightly. I for one have bandied the phrase, “What Vista should have been”, and extolled it’s virtues to all that would listen, I have even pre-ordered a copy. But are we going too far in our wonder and praise for Windows 7? And is it being perpetuated by Microsofts marketing department?
If you will indulge me for a small moment, what I am going to say will make a relevant point. If you remember recently the “Best Job in the World” was reported in the Guardian, and The Times, and subsequently given to a British fellow as a caretaker for the Great Barrier Reef. Even more recently, at the Cannes Advertising Festival, a Brisbane-based advertising agency won two of the top prizes this year. The whole thing being a PR stunt. So good was the bait, that even the good old BBC reported it as news. My point is then, how much of what we are reading can be trusted to be non-bias true news and comment?
Certainly for most people who have bought a laptop, even in this day and age will not be waiting, baited breath, to wipe Vista from it, to do the recommended clean install of Windows 7. They will get Windows 7 the same way they got Vista, on the next PC or laptop they buy. And even if somehow, people become proficient enough to install Windows 7, business is a different issue.
Going by a survey done by IT company ScriptLogic, 60 percent of businesses don’t plan to upgrade when the new OS comes out. Why? In my opinion the barriers to adoption have not moved on significantly from Vista. Looking at a Microsoft blog, the benefits of Windows 7 include:
- Windows 7 Ribbon
- Multi-Touch
- Sensor and Location Platform
- PowerShell 2
- High Fidelity Graphics
- Device Stage
- Federated Search
None of which offer significantly more help to business than the feature set in XP, or Vista, especially to your average user. The wins they do gain such as the reliability, and speed improvements already exist in XP. XP mode is a fantastic technology, but is it a reason to upgrade from XP?
The problem is Windows is a mature OS, and features that make it a must have are becoming more scarce. Business will move to Windows 7, but in their own time, not Microsofts. And the mantra, “Not until the first Service Pack is released”, will be ringing in IT managers ears. So expect a quick release of Windows 7 SP1. Windows 7 is a good OS, and certainly a worthy successor to XP, but as Linux has found so many times, it is fiendishly difficult to wean people off.