Win 7 Signals End Of XP’s Corporate Reign

A new report from research firm Forrester has predicted that Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 7 will likely spell the end of Windows XP, before the extended support for the old operating system expires in April 2014.

Forrester found that a majority of corporate PC decision-makers surveyed intend to upgrade to Windows 7, although their timeframe for adoption varies widely. Despite data suggesting a Windows 7-fuelled tech refresh is imminent, a few background factors could impede its spread in the enterprise.

Such as the fact that Windows XP still powers 80 percent of all commercial PCs, according to the Forrester report.

The factors contributing to the end of “Windows XP’s corporate reign,” writes Forrester’s Benjamin Gray, include the need to refresh aging IT infrastructure, the upcoming end of Windows XP support, a squeeze in XP’s availability, Windows 7 features that make an upgrade potentially useful, and Windows XP Mode removing the application-incompatibility barrier.

“When the recession hit, one of the very first levers that IT managers pulled to lower their IT costs was to extend the life of their existing desktops from four to five years and laptops from three to four years,” Gray wrote. “Many more have held off on refreshing their systems even longer because they’re looking to tie in their PC upgrade with their Windows 7 deployment.”

Once Windows 7 enters general release, the ability of IT shops to deploy Windows XP will decline. Within 18 months of the release, or with the release of the first Windows 7 service pack, “the OEM licenses bundled with every PC will no longer carry downgrade rights to Windows XP.” This means, essentially, that deploying XP within an enterprise or SMB (small and mid-size business) will require either falling back on unused Windows XP volume licenses or purchasing volume licence copies of XP along with new PCs. That adds an extra step to the procurement process that IT administrators may be unwilling to take.

Support for Windows XP is also ending, which further complicates matters for any IT shop wanting to hold onto the older operating system. Extended support for Windows XP Service Packs 2 and 3 will end in April 2014, with no updates or patches offered after that date.

Research firm Gartner recently came to similar conclusions as the Forrester report, and also suggested that a generalised lack of XP support from independent software vendors (ISVs) will start around the end of 2011, with a support “XP danger zone” developing at the end of 2012.

Gartner analysts Stephen Kleynhans and Michael Silver, in their presentation, suggested that IT shops could potentially find benefits in Windows 7’s applications and features, including better UAC (User Account Control), BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, and an updated user interface.

The Forrester report cites many of those same features as potentially useful to the enterprise, adding that IT administrators need to prepare for their deployment:

“The top five Windows 7 features that IT professionals need to prepare for are: 1) DirectAccess, which promises to simplify connectivity for Mobile users; 2) BranchCache, which promises to improve branch access networking; 3) BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, which promise to secure the data on hard drives and removable USB thumb drives; 4) AppLocker, which promises to deliver more granular control of user applications, and 5) federated search, which promises to simplify access to data across local and remote resources.”

The last hurdle to Windows 7 adoption, Gray believes, was potential application incompatibility with the new operating system; something he feels that Windows XP mode, which allows those applications to be run in a virtual XP-compatible environment, will solve that issue for administrators.

An accompanying Forrester survey of 653 PC decision-makers at North American and European enterprises and SMBs found that six out of 10 firms plan on moving directly to Windows 7, despite the lack of an easy upgrade path for those firms currently deploying XP. Some 32 percent of those firms using Windows Vista hadn’t decided on their next step, while 2 percent planned to migrate to a non-Windows platform.