Businesses should be aware of the risks of upgrading to Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system, including underestimating costs and the length of a testing period, tech research and analysis firm Gartner has warned.
The warning comes as Microsoft is set to release the new software this Thursday, 22 October, with prices ranging from $199 to $468 for individual users.Gartner says that while the launch of Windows 7 is not a "significant improvement" from Windows Vista, it is inevitable many companies will upgrade to the new software.
Steve Kleynhans, research vice president, said in a statement companies should plan to upgrade by the end of 2012 as many software vendors will cease testing their products on Windows XP by that time.
"New releases of critical business software will require Windows 7 long before Microsoft support for Windows XP ends... Organisations that get all of their users off Windows XP by the end of 2012 will avoid significant potential problems."
Gartner also warned companies to start migrating projects to the new operating system now, as "the typical organisation requires 12 to 18 months waiting, testing and planning before it can start deploying a new client OS... delays in getting started will only result in added costs later".
The company warns businesses to begin testing and deploying the new OS on systems in order to detect any bugs. Vice president Michael Silver also said in a statement that businesses shouldn't "skip" Windows 7 in favour of the next OS.
"While organisations that skipped Windows 2000 and waited for XP had some problems spanning the gap, organisations that adopted Windows 2000 and tried to skip Windows XP, waiting for Vista, had a much harder time."
Finally, Gartner recommends businesses budget carefully in order to determine which version of Windows 7 would be the most appropriate for their company.
"Gartner's model shows that migration costs could be $US1,035 to $US1,930 per user to move from Windows XP to Windows 7, and $US339 to $US510 per user to move from Windows Vista to Windows 7 depending on an organisation's approach."
The warnings come as Gartner says Windows 7 is expected to become the dominant OS over the next few years, with approximately 6% of all PCs sold in 2009 set to be loaded with the software.
Additionally, the company said, approximately 66% of all new PCs by the end of 2010 will be preloaded or sold with the new software with the OS to overtake Vista as the main operating system with 53% of computers running Windows 7 by 2012.
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I hear about the costs of converting, and I don't doubt them. But I haven't yet seen any reports on the payback - and it is significant. I work on the premise that a typical "worker's" time costs 5 cents per second in gross revenue terms. Maybe that's high, but it's at least 3 cents, and it is significant.
Quick summary: Windows 7 will save you a Large Lump Of Money over its life. It is a brilliant operating system - but spend five minutes learning about some of its shortcuts. The simple "drag the window to the right and it will take up the right hand half of the screen" saves me heaps of time on its own.