Brian Gammage

The following factors are expected to drive adoption of Windows 7 in the market:
• Quick transition between Windows Vista and Windows 7 availability on new PC shipments for consumers and small business buyers. We expect that PC vendors and retailers will be managing their product inventory well to ensure that products with pre-loaded Windows Vista will be sold out in the first 4 weeks after Windows 7’s release across mature markets. In emerging markets it might take 1-3 months after Windows 7 release, due to variation of Windows 7 release dates across selected countries and slightly longer channel inventory time frames.
• Microsoft will also offer free upgrade program to Windows 7. PC buyers that will purchase their PCs between 26th June 2009 and 11th January will get a Windows Upgrade Option, limited to 25 PCs/organization. That should have helped avoid the dip in PC sales in back-to-school PC sales in 2009.
• The negative image of Windows Vista among many business companies due to application and hardware compatibility issues will result in many companies that have not started deploying Vista, will skip it and move straight to Windows 7. The delay in Windows Vista deployments in 2009/10 and increase in number of companies planning to skip Windows Vista will lead to a major boost in Windows 7 enterprise deployments from middle of 2011.
• For organizations that have remediated applications for Vista or deployed some Vista, relatively easy migration due to reduction in the application and hardware compatibility issues for users migrating from Windows Vista to Windows 7.
• Economic weakness resulting in delayed PC purchases in 2008 and 2009.
• Limited ISV support for Windows XP after 2011 will force organizations to move to Windows 7.

However, the following factors could inhibit the adoption of Windows 7 in the market:
• The current economic downturn is expected to lead to decline of WW PC shipment in 2009 (both consumer and professional), thus negatively impacting the overall Windows 7 license sales in the first 6-12 months after its release.
• Mainstream adoption by enterprise companies will not start until 2011, as it usually takes 12-18 months after new OS launch for the companies to prepare for OS deployment and ensure ISV support.
• In the current situation when IT budgets are being cut, many enterprise companies might delay tests of new OS thus delaying the start of Windows 7 deployment time until 1H 2011.
• Windows XP will be supported (even it is in the extended support phase) until early 2014, thus some companies might not feel no need to rush Windows 7 deployment.
• While the compatibility between application and hardware working on Vista and Windows 7 should be significantly improved, it does mean that the migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 will be easer than from Windows XP to Vista. The majority of enterprise PCs are running Windows XP, so companies will still need to spend as much time testing their application and hardware to migrate to Windows 7 from XP, as move from Windows XP to Vista.
• Expected strong growth in alternative client computing architectures, like Hosted Virtual Desktops (HVD) and Server Based Computing, will reduce the potential traditional professional desktop market that run Windows OS. Many organizations looking at HVD will deploy Window 7 with that technology, which will not be mainstream until 2011/12.