CRNTech: Seven potential obstacles to Windows 7 bliss

The economy

Windows 7 has been mostly well received by an industry that had every right to be sceptical after the Vista debacle. However, companies that normally plan their Windows upgrades around new PC purchases are avoiding capital expenditures like the plague, and in light of the historically shaky economic situation, who can blame them?

"With past Windows releases, people would usually wait to upgrade with the purchase of a new PC, but many businesses are hesitant to buy new PCs right now and are waiting until the economy improves," said one solution provider, who requested anonymity. 

Microsoft has reduced both the size and the memory footprint of Windows 7, and the result is an OS that runs well on smaller devices such as netbooks, as well as older hardware. That could be enough to convince companies to forgo new PC purchases and upgrade their current ones to Windows 7, but these firms will still run into time-related costs associated with the upgrade.

Bob Nitrio, CEO of Ranvest Associates, a technology consultant, says any OS transition requires a level of testing and backup work that will take smaller businesses away from their core mission of serving customers. That obviously isn't an option for companies that are already on the brink. "There's a serious question of how much time, money and other resources companies will be able to put forth given the current economic situation," Nitrio said.

One of the main problems Microsoft faced with Vista is the fact that XP is a solid OS that meets the needs of a large percentage of the IT industry. XP is still the predominant OS in use among businesses, and according to Net

Applications, Windows XP market share stood at 71.8 percent in August, compared with 18.8 percent for Vista. These numbers are sure to change once Microsoft releases Windows 7, but it could be a while before XP abdicates the throne.

Microsoft is desperately trying to move the industry away from XP. In April, Microsoft ended mainstream support for XP and now requires customers to pay for support on a per-incident basis. However, Microsoft will continue delivering XP security updates for free until 2014, which suggests that some companies with XP PCs could decide to keep running them until the hardware dies.

Jay Tipton, vice president of US-based solution provider Technology Specialists, expects to sell more Windows 7 PCs than he did Vista PCs, but notes that many customers are still downgrading Vista PCs to XP. Unless they're blown away by the performance of Windows 7, Tipton says some economy-weary customers could stay put with XP.

"If machines are doing what companies need them to do, and they aren't having problems, why change?" Tipton said.

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