2009, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

July 22, 2009

6

Plan Now For Licensing Windows 7 

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S

Consider your uPgrade timeline and dePloyment requirements

Planning your Windows 7 licensing strategy is not an exercise done in isolation. Your existing

licenses and volume licensing agreements, the Windows 7 edition you plan on upgrading to

and the timeline, and how SA impacts your deployment all factor into your plans. your historical

approach to refreshing your desktops and laptops combined with the age of your infrastructure

by the time you re ready to start your Windows 7 deployment will impact whether you should

introduce it via a forklift or big bang approach or via the natural rolling refresh cycle.

your license plans should not just be limited to you Windows upgrade strategy. Because of

Microsoft s bundling strategy within their product portfolio, you should also factor in your plans

in other product families like Office, SharePoint, and Exchange. There can be opportunities to take

advantage of bundles that can drive down costs across your Microsoft investments.

endnotes

1

Forrester s analysis of more than 85,000 enterprise clients found that Windows XP, while still king, is finally

beginning its long anticipated decline in the corporate PC market. Picking up ground are both Windows Vista,

which now powers approximately 12% of Windows PCs, and Mac OS X, which has ramped up to an

impressive 3.6%. See the July 22, 2009, Corporate PC Operating System Trends, Q3 2008 To Q2 2009 report.

2

According to Forrester s Q3 2008 hardware survey, Windows Vista is powering almost 10% of PCs within

North American and European enterprises. While this figure might seem unimpressive to IT managers,

when specifically asked about their Windows Vista deployment plans, almost one-third responded that

they have already started their deployments, with another 26% citing plans to start this year or later. But

IT decision-makers don t have an entirely rosy outlook for Windows Vista. We found that 15% plan on

skipping Windows Vista entirely and going straight to Windows 7 after its release. And another 22% still

have no definitive plans for deploying Windows Vista, and 6% simply don t know yet what their plans are.

See the January 30, 2009, Enterprises Warming To Windows Vista report.

3

Tis means that only security updates are broadly available and nonsecurity hot fixes are only available

through an extended hotfix agreement.

4

Source: Microsoft Support Lifecycle, Microsoft (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-

gb&C2=1173).

5

IT operations professionals need to start preparing for Windows 7 now, and the best way to prepare for it is by

deploying Windows Vista. Short of that, begin testing your applications and hardware for compatibility against

Windows Vista SP1. It will pay off with greater compatibility with Windows 7. Why? Because Windows 7 is

built on the same code base as Windows Vista, and the vast majority of applications that are compatible with

Windows Vista will remain compatible with Windows 7. It s important to note that there will be some low-

level application exceptions, such as client security, imaging, firewall, and networking, but the Release