Companies who have not yet made the switch to Windows Vista are in an awkward position. Windows 7 is supposed to come out in late 2009 which would mean that a company skipping Windows Vista would save lots of money when switching right to Windows 7. The costs for testing and deploying Windows Vista and training the staff would fall away and could be added to the budget of the Windows 7 deployment a year later. There are however a few reasons why it might make sense under certain circumstances to switch to Windows Vista instead of waiting for Windows 7.
Companies and businesses not running Windows Vista yet are most likely running a previous version of the Windows operating system. The majority will still run Windows XP. The problem with Windows XP is that the mainstream support phase ends in 2008 and that the extended support phase will begin in 2009. Analysts like Gartner predict that vendor support for Windows XP will begin to wane in the beginning of 2010 which might not be a problem for a company that wants to deploy Windows 7 if the release will be indeed in 2009. Most companies however will not migrate to a new operating system in the first months of its release. The deployment phase usually begins 6-12 months after the initial release. It might be safe to wait on the other hand if no hardware purchases are planned in 2009 / 2010 and that the next hardware purchase and replacement phase begins in 2011 or later.
Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer voiced his opinion about the success of Windows Vista at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Orlando and gave a few insights about the upcoming Microsoft operating system. He mentioned that Windows 7 would be a major release because Microsoft put more work into it than a minor release would usually receive and that Windows 7 would be Windows Vista but a lot better. The second statement confirms the statements Microsoft made earlier that Windows 7 would have similar hardware requirements as Windows Vista. It could be interpreted that Windows 7 would be indeed more like Windows Vista 2 than a separate major release which Ballmer tried to rebut by pointing out that Windows 7 would be a major release.
Ballmer was also asked why companies should upgrade to Windows Vista instead of waiting for Windows 7. The answer was a diplomatic one, stating that companies could wait if they wanted but that he personally would deploy Windows Vista.
