Windows 8 will be Kill XP, Vista, and Windows 7

A good point was made by Ed Bott of ZDNet when he wrote a post that said that businesses were going to use Windows 8 as an excuse to get Windows 7. Sounds like crazy logic, but it makes sense. Businesses are not on the forefront of the technology revolution. They like to play it safe. Right now XP is safe.  Windows 7 is not. Next year, presumably in April when Windows 8 is released, it will make Windows 7 safe. Windows 8 will be looked upon as cutting edge technology, but untested.

With the majority of businesses still using XP the growth towards Windows 7 will intensify into acceptance. The result is inevitable. XP and Vista should breathe their last sometime in 2012.

The Economy and The Cloud
That said, the big IF is whether the US economy will improve enough to give businesses sufficient confidence that they can spend money. With the real estate market in the doldrums, jobs moving overseas, inflation, and high debt, businesses are worried that spending too much money may in fact kill their chances of profitability, if not the business itself. So one big issue is whether or not the economy will rebound.

Another issue that is starting to manifest itself, which was not a player when Windows 7 was released, is the Cloud. This allows software and hardware upgrades to be less important, because a company can lease the latest software and hardware from a Microsoft Data Center and make the transition to the most current technology. With Windows 8 coming, it may even supplant the Windows 7 element. All that Microsoft has to do is show that the legacy applications will run on Windows 8.

There is also fact that Windows 8 may have many features currently seen today in tablets and mobile smart phones. So the view that the technology is untested may not applicable, which in turn will allow businesses to make the transition to the most current OS.

Windows 8 Will Be Hardware Backwards Compatible

In the past, one of the biggest drawbacks to OS migration has been the problem of upgrade compatibility. IT managers were frequently worried that a new OS also meant an upgrade in the hardware. That was the stopping point. According to the economics of this scenario, you had to spend money on the new operating system and money on the hardware needed to run the operating system.

t the Microsoft Partner Conference, officials addressed this concern.

“In both of our Windows 8 previews, we talked about continuing with the important trend that we started with Windows 7, keeping system requirements either flat or reducing them over time. Windows 8 will be able to run on a wide range of machines because it will have the same requirements or lower.” In other words, the upgrade issue should be flat and non-existent. Provided, of course, that the system meets the following minimum requirements.

• 1GHz CPU
• 1GB RAM (for 32-bit systems) or 2GB RAM (for 64-bit systems)
• 16 GB hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver.

IT managers will still be concerned about the upgrade. The “What Again?” problem will be there. That is, if they have recently upgraded, will they be willing to make another upgrade so soon? Remember, that an upgrade is not just about an OS and hardware. It also means upgrading the skill set of employees. After all, why do the upgrade at all if they do not know how to use the new OS to its full capacity? Furthermore, there have to be re-assurances that the existing software will port over to the new OS. That means days, or weeks of testing. Sometimes this occurs simultaneously with the existing OS to make sure that the software in question will work.

For now, though Microsoft is making the effort that at least one upgrade problem will not occur, that is that IT managers will not have to upgrade their hardware.