Companies need to be preparing to move onto Windows 7 now, as support for XP drivers and applications is likely to cease by 2013, says Gartner.
Microsoft launched the latest version of its operating platform last October, and local demand surprised retailers, which sold out of the much-anticipated software.
Brian Gammage, Gartner fellow and VP, says companies will face a substantial amount of work to switch over to Windows 7 from XP, as at least half the applications within organisations require Windows to work. These will need to be tested to make sure they work on the new system.
Gammage says firms that made the change to Vista will have less work to do because the software architecture is the same as that used in Windows 7. However, he notes, many companies chose not to make that leap and stayed on XP. “Windows 7 is not a major architectural release; it's a polishing release on top of Windows Vista's architectural changes.”
Microsoft will stop supporting XP in April 2014, says Gammage, but vendors will stop supporting applications and drivers sooner. As a result, Gartner recommends that companies target the end of 2012 as a deadline for the upgrade.
Gammage says 2013 is the “danger year” and companies should be very close to completing migration by then. “If you are still running XP, that's when you run into the situation of forced migration.”
Takes time
It will take companies between 15 and 18 months to prepare for migration, says Gammage. This includes three months of information gathering, between six and nine months on testing in a simulated environment, and another six months running pilot tests.
Vendors take about 18 months to catch up with new operating system launches, says Gammage. This means early adopters will battle to find drivers and application support after upgrading.
However, as Windows 7 launched almost a year ago, companies will be able to start deploying the new operating system now, as vendors are catching up. If, however, companies wait too long for drivers and application upgraded to be developed, vendors will stop supporting XP.
Gammage says companies can also contemplate moving to open source software during the upgrade to Windows 7. He says applications need to be repackaged to work on Windows 7, and this work can be undertaken to also allow applications to function in an open source environment.
* Nicola Mawson is being hosted courtesy of Gartner.
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