Uncertainty on deployment of Windows 7 for CIOs, IT managers

By Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 20 October 2009 12:59

IT Industry - Market

Australian CIOs and IT managers remain uncertain about deployment strategies, application support, and the impact on end users from deploying Windows 7, although a recent survey found that they do now have a clear understanding of the features and benefits of it.

IT company, Data#3, today released the results of its recent survey of 192 Australian CIOs and IT Managers, which showed that 67 percent of companies were considering deploying Windows 7 in the next 12-months. According to data collected in the survey, the idea of waiting for Service Pack 1 “seems to be a thing of the past, and, along with the 67 percent of enterprise customers (1000+ seats) looking to deploy Windows 7, 83 percent of mid-market customers (100-1000 seats) said they are also considering deployment of Windows 7 within the next year.

Data#3’s Microsoft services practice manager, Scott Gosling, said it is clear from the survey responses that, while respondents have a good grasp of the features and benefits of Windows 7, “there does, however, seem to be a lot of uncertainty when it comes to how to best deploy the software, whether corporate applications will be compatible, and how to reduce the impact on end users during the migration process.”

The Data#3 finding that 67 percent of organisations are considering deploying Windows 7 in the next year, support similar findings of another survey recently conducted by Information Technology Intelligence Corp.

According to Gosling, “waiting for Service Pack 1 is a thing of the past,” and he says, “one of the major deployment challenges posed by Windows Vista was application compatibility as some key corporate applications were incompatible on release.

“These challenges were widely reported and are still fresh in many CIO’s minds. New approaches are available with the release of Windows 7 to address application compatibility challenges for corporate applications.
 
“These include Windows XP Mode and MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation), which is a component of the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP) suite. Microsoft has also released the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 which includes comprehensive guidance for application compatibility.

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