So Windows 7 is finally upon us and most organizations already know quite a lot about it: they know it’s the same generation technology as Windows Vista, that’s it has a smaller overall footprint, that it has many small improvements that will make it easier to adopt and use. In effect, that it’s like Windows Vista without some of the “hard edges” that deterred its adoption. They know about it because they’ve already planned for it – in a majority of cases, because they knew when they decided to skip Windows Vista that they were making migration to Windows 7 a necessity. For a majority of organizations, Windows 7 is the next major step on their client computing roadmap.
Many organizations are now building client computing roadmaps that look five or more years ahead. They are doing so because technology changes are creating more options for delivering applications to users and they need direction to navigate through the new range of choices. They are also doing so because they recognize their desktop real estate as a critical asset that defines end user capabilities and the per-user cost of IT. Client computing assets consume a big slice of most IT budgets and many organizations are stepping back to take a more strategic view of their current and future investments. This change is significant – it represents a shift from in the balance of market power between suppliers and buyers. Organizations are no longer prepared to navigate supplier roadmaps without question – they are building their own roadmaps so suppliers can navigate theirs. Windows Vista was part victim, part instigator of this change. Vista’s low marginal benefit and high cost of migration motivated many desktop planners to raise their eyes from the road and look further ahead.
The problem with roadmaps is that they demand more information about future products than most suppliers want to offer. To make the best next step, you must know where you will want to go afterwards. For organizations planning Windows 7 deployments, that means looking beyond – to Windows 8 or whatever it will eventually be called. Microsoft has not been able to support the requirement; it is still fully occupied communicating about Windows 7 and is unlikely to begin talking about what comes next until Windows 7 adoption begins. Thankfully, we at Gartner have no such constraints – we have been telling customers what we think will come next for some time.
Our views of Windows 8 (let’s call it that for convenience) were published in February 2009. We built these on three basic assumptions:
• Microsoft will not stop innovating and adding new capabilities to Windows
• Backwards compatibility with previous Windows versions is non-negotiable
• Windows cannot keep getting “bigger”, because scale and complexity have become significant barriers to adoption and hence a problem for Microsoft (which, after all, wants to keep selling new products).
These three assumptions point to an end of the road for the monolithic architecture of the Windows OS – in which everything resides and is interlinked in the same bubble. Instead, we believe Microsoft has to separate the compatibility components from the new, delivering each in its own bubble. The technology to support these on a single device already exists – its called a privileged hypervisor and Microsoft is already on the way to integrating one of those into its Windows Server OS. Microsoft also has the technology to create a single, seamless user interface that spans two separate computing “bubbles” in its desktop virtualization product, MEDV.
So, does Windows 7 conform to this vision? So far, yes. Windows 7 is more virtualizable than Windows Vista, so would be easier to package as the “compatibility” bubble in a 2-part OS. Meanwhile, changes in the way Microsoft delivers products that help use the OS show the Windows business model is evolving too. With more enterprise-focused capabilities delivered through SA and MDOP, subscription services to use Windows are gradually becoming essential for most organizations. This is important, because while we expect the compatibility piece will continue to be delivered as a preloaded “product”, the newer functionality will likely be delivered online as a service.
So what does this tell you about Windows 7 and beyond?
• Windows 8 will come as two “execution bubbles”, one for compatibility functions and the other for new
• The compatibility piece will almost certainly be Windows 7
• The new piece will be delivered online/over the air (it may even converge with Windows Mobile)
In other words, there’s good news and bad news. Good – your investments in Windows 7 will have longer lifespan than usual because a near identical bubble will get an extended support life with Windows 8. Bad – organizations that don’t pay for SA or an enterprise agreement today will have to pay more.
The future of the Windows OS may be set to get simpler, but no one said it would cost less.
2 responses so far ↓
1 someone else // Oct 28, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I’ve been annoyed with the general consensus that Win7’s “Compatibility Mode” is somehow a great thing. It’s not a “part of Win7″ that provides compatibility, it’s a full legacy-os virtual machine. So now instead of managing a rollout of a new OS, you have to manage a new OS rollout AND continue managing the old OS. Functionally, you’ve just doubled your administrative burden per user. Now this is being touted as the way forward in Win8 & beyond? I hope not. I fail to see how this equates to simplifying anything. Maybe for microsoft, but not for the people deploying & managing.
2 Brian Gammage // Nov 13, 2009 at 5:01 pm
We would agree on the “XP Mode” legacy virtual machine – its a full instance and hence doubles the number of management targets on a PC. We can see the approach being useful for a limited time if a particular application is delaying a migration that has to begin, but the key word here is “limited” – herein lies the problem. If an appllication cant be remediated now, there is little prospect that it will be remediated in a short (and predictable) period of time. Deploying a legacy VM (whether through XP Mode, MEDV or some other means) is thus somewhat akin to a blank check.
However, we have to disagree on the approach for future Windows versions. The market cannot swallow another, even bigger, monolithic OS. Migrating OS is a necessity (the old ones move out of support), so we will need a new OS at some point and that OS will comprise both compatibility and new functions. The view we are expressing is that managing these two categories separately (and keeping in mind that the compatibility part would be the current OS, while the new part would be much smaller) will be less overahead than managing them as a single, inflated item.
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