Dear CEO, yes it is time to move away from Windows XP – here are some reasons why:
- Mainstream support for Windows XP has already ended last year and extended support is available until 2014 – so you probably won’t be able to wait until Windows 8. You can only hold off for so long …
- You might want to take a look at Windows 7 Business Value Analysis – depending on the type of organization you will have a different ROI and cost structure. “I haven’t heard about possible advantages” seems like a lame excuse for just sticking with what you know.
- There are some great improvements – maybe you will not notice a lot of difference but believe me – when your workforce will adopt it Windows 7 in their home environment – they will notice these differences and might be disappointed for the lack of these features in their work environment. Yuo can even guide them using the new Enterprise Learning Framework My favorite improvements:
- Performance improvements – yes even with older hardware I see that it just boots faster and that the settings screens load faster as well.
- Support for 64 bit – I’m a SharePoint dev so …
- Search desktop and programs (my personal favorite)
- Better wireless support – I haven’t had any issues since I moved to Windows 7 – both Windows XP and Vista gave me severe headaches when using it in combination with my wireless network.
- Productivity enhancement due to the new UI
- DirectAccess – accessing networks without the need to VPN – I can’t wait for this one.
- Boot from VHD option (yep probably not a typical end user operation)
- Use the Windows 7 refresh to assess your desktop environments and try to rationalize the application portfolio you currently need to support. A migration is not only a technical operation – if you approach it intelligently you might create extra value while migrating.
- Although the standalone user operating system becomes less relevant in a corporate environment – I do think that IT consultancy and services firms should typically lead the pack in migrations. Consider an account manager (or consultant for that matter) trying to sell the value of Windows 7 when giving a presentation with Office 2003 and Windows XP – must be a hard sell in my opinion.
If you agree or disagree … just leave a comment
Agree, MS Windows XP should be burned. Their legacy software should be ran in a virtual environment, sealed off to minimize security risks.
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