A well dressed business lady is telling me how she can now use her laptop in a taxi because the taskbar on her new laptop has dynamic preview of all her running applications and windows. She finishes by stating “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea.”
Unless you have had your head buried in the technical sand recently you will know that Microsoft has just launched their newest operating system “Windows 7” with a fanfare. And you are likely to have seen one of the adverts advertising campaign demonstrating how Microsoft have listened to users and provided the features they have always desired. But have Microsoft just addressed the needs of the travelling power user, or will Windows 7 also meet the needs of the enterprise?
When I go on-site to support eg’s clients, I see computer after computer all running Windows XP. None of our clients have rolled out Windows Vista, and you’d be hard pushed to find many corporations that have done so – Microsoft being the only example that I know of. To find out whether Windows 7 will be enterprise compatible, we need to briefly understand why Vista was not.
Vista was supposed to be revolutionary. It was a huge step forward from Windows XP, had a much improved User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX), looked fantastic, removed core functionality from the kernel (making it inherently more stable), properly enforced permissions and security and had the first widely available implementation of 64-bit Windows. Unfortunately the revolution Microsoft craved also created a massive community backlash. This was mostly aimed at Vista’s poor performance (only the newest / fastest machines could cope) but also at the instability (there had been poor consideration and planning with hardware manufacturers – the operating system came to market before the hardware manufacturers had time to react). Experienced XP users also resisted the UI changes and it soon became clear that Vista was becoming one of Microsoft’s biggest failures. Ultimately enterprise system administrators had no reason to purchase Vista – the bad points outweighed the good. This was not the revolution that Microsoft had hoped for.
Windows 7 is built on-top of Vista, but this isn’t a bad thing – it makes Windows 7 at least a 2nd generation product. But to think of it as a “rebadged Vista” would be selling it a little short. Manufacturers are better prepared for Windows 7 than they were for Vista. The minimum computer specification for running Windows 7 is still considerably more than that required for XP, but it is on a par with that required for Vista:
This may still be a barrier for entry. Many computers in bulk processing environments are still under this spec, even though this spec for a PC isn’t particularly big anymore. Technology has moved a long way since Vista was launched in November 2006, and it would take some effort to buy a computer now that didn’t meet the minimum requirements. Enterprises with 3 year computer replacement policies are likely to be meeting these requirements now.
Technological progress is all about change, and operating system development is no different. The visual changes to Vista were another frustration for the masses. The claim was that the User Experience (UX) in Vista was far easier to use and more intuitive than XP… once you knew how to use it. That last statement is key. Users got frustrated with Vista because “things are so different”. They knew how to use XP. The truth is that whilst a changed UI can be frustrating for an experienced user, the “new way” is usually better than the old and Vista is a good example of this. Fortunately Microsoft has resisted any temptation for another wholesale UI change and Windows 7 only evolves the Vista interface. Many of the advanced UX changes from Vista remain (sidebars, aero themes, user information etc) and some subtle enhancements have been added – in my opinion Windows 7 is easier to learn than Vista.
Like Vista, Windows 7 is available in Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate editions and it is difficult to determine which edition is being punted at the enterprise market – the Ultimate Edition is the only version slated as having BitLocker and multi-language support and all editions include Media Center – and no self respecting enterprise admin is going to roll that out across an entire organisation.
If you dig a little deeper you will find that a streamlined Enterprise Edition is also available, which enhances the offering from the Professional Edition with features such as DirectAccess, BranchCache, Federated Search, BitLocker, AppLocker, Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and a Multilingual user interface . This seems much more appropriate, but licensing and purchasing will require enrolment in Microsoft’s Partner Program.
When thinking about deployment the physical rollout of the operating system (and subsequent patches, hotfixes and service packs) is a primary consideration for all SysAdmins. Microsoft have addressed this with “…Advanced image management and deployment tools [to] enable IT professionals to … push those system images to desktops using less network bandwidth…” In lay terms this means less work for the SysAdmins.
So what will your average SysAdmin do with all their new found free time? Well, Windows 7 also provides support for the tremendous scripting and automation capabilities provided by PowerShell 2. SysAdmins will keep themselves busy creating scripts to automate more and more of their repetitive tasks until, ironically, creating scripts becomes their most repetitive task… who knows what will happen then… Anyway, another notable selling point for the enterprise environment is the leap to client virtualisation for those that need it.
Only time will tell if Windows 7 proves to be a compelling enough product for enterprise environments. One source I’ve seen has predicted that 49% of businesses will upgrade in the next 12 months, 11% will wait for SP1 and 40% have no specific timetable. I personally hope these figures are true. Seeing a higher take-up of Windows 7 in day-to-day enterprise roles would be fantastic – I’m convinced that adopters would see a return on their investment. In addition staff would be using an up to date product and this can only encourage them to embrace modern technology rather than fear it.
I’m a software engineer, and whilst Windows 7 wasn’t my idea, I wish it was.
