I’m sure many of you have suddenly woken up after you’ve read that headline, “Windows 7 Experts?! Why that could be me!” and yes it’s true, I’m sure several of our readers could be classed as Windows 7 experts by this stage. And if you’re looking for new employment in this field, then you’ve never had a better chance.
A report from Gartner is warning that businesses upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows XP and 2000, should be prepared to face an increase in IT expenses over the next couple of years.
Microsoft’s support for Windows XP and 2000 is set to end in just 4 years and as a result, many companies wont have a chance to upgrade their OS by their preferred method of a hardware refresh.
“With most migrations not starting until the fourth quarter of 2010, at the earliest, and PC hardware replacement cycles typically running at four to five years, most organisations will not be able to migrate to Windows 7 through usual planned hardware refresh before support for Windows XP ends,” warned Charles Smulders, managing vice president at Gartner.
This means that companies will be looking to upgrade their existing hardware to Windows 7 instead of just buying new machines all together. Of course this comes with its own difficulties as upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 isn’t the easiest process under the sun.
So businesses will be looking to hire experts in Windows 7 migration to help them make the transfer to the OS, and as the deadline looms for the end of XP, the demand will only increase as more and more corporations rush to make the change. The pressure will be at it’s most between 2011 and 2012 and the demand for highly qualified migration IT personnel will exceed supply, leading to higher rates. If you’re an IT Migration guru, then it’s happy days for you, but if your a business owner, you will be looking at increased costs to help make the jump to Windows 7.
Gartner also estimates that organisations worldwide will migrate some 250 million PCs to Windows 7 by 2015, so there advising all businesses to get onto it as soon as they can.
And there you have it, if you’ve been following this site for a while now, you could be one of those Windows 7 gurus that will be in high demand over the next couple of years!
