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Flirtatious Business Thoughts: From Windows XP to… Windows 7?
(Follow me on Twitter: msftkitchen)
Forrester Research, a company who other companies hire to partner with them and help form business strategies to meet short-term goals, has a report dated April 16th, 2008 and is titled “Building the Business Case for WinVista”. You can purchase this barely 3-and-a-half page report from them for a fantastic rip-off price of $279.00. Fortunately, that very same report resides freely on download.microsoft.com. The outlandishly priced report basically lists 5 reasons for businesses to go ahead and migrate to Vista. Littered throughout the report are mentions of our friend, Windows 7. From the report’s opening statement (titled “Executive Summary”), “Forrester has spoken with dozens of companies that are internally debating the possibility of skipping Windows Vista entirely and going straight to the next release, known as “Windows 7″ [and] we’re finding that businesses that have flirted with the idea of skipping Windows Vista altogether and going straight to Windows 7 as soon as it becomes available almost always realize the pitfalls of this scenario and circle back around with us to discuss their Windows Vista deployment plans.”
So, just what are Forrester’s $279.00 top-five reasons for your company to migrate to Vista? Not worth $279.00, that’s what! With that being said, here’s their prolific reason number 4… (wait for it… wait for it… GO):
- There’s even more uncertainty around Windows 7.
HOLY COW, WHAT A REASON! If you’re interested in reading the humorously generic points 1, 2, 3, and 5 as well as their detailed breakdowns, feel free to download the 4-page PDF file FREELY from Microsoft here (which is linked from here) or go give Forrester your first born child, but since everyone’s ears (or eyes, actually, I suppose…) are burning for all things Windows 7, point 4 is broken down in the document as follows:
“To be blunt, customers know very little about Windows 7. Besides when it’s slated to become available, they know that it’s going to be a full release. Meaning? It’s going to have a business version and a consumer version – and knowing Microsoft, multiple versions of each. It’s also going to support both 32- and 64-bit computing. Beyond these tidbits, everything else is pure rumor and speculation. But it’s important to keep in mind that Microsoft doesn’t exactly have a clean track record for delivering products on time. It also tends to strip out promised features in order to hit deadlines (e.g., WinFS from Windows Vista). Ironically, one of Microsoft’s biggest weaknesses – the unpredictable release schedule of its desktop operating systems – will likely spur adoption of Windows Vista as a result of this lack of faith in Microsoft delivering Windows 7 on time.“
Ouch! That part I bolded reads like a shot in the gut by Mike Tyson!
My personal meanderings on the matter:
Why are these people passing on Vista and just what do they think is going to be BETTER or DIFFERENT about Windows 7 that they will just immediately migrate to it? Should Sinofsky and crew take heed and try to come up with a plan to push as much *positive* influence as possible regarding Windows 7 (erm, without making promises they aren’t so sure they can keep, that is)? Those of you coming up through Longhorn can easily remember the passion and excitement that came about with each new detail, screenshot, video, build, etc. That same passion and excitement are starting to take root with Windows 7… and that should be ringing some loud bells in the heads of folks like Sinofsky. That being said, I know Sinofsky recently made an effort to shed at least a little bit of light on Windows 7 and I completely understand his reasons for being hush-hush in regards to Windows 7 at this point in development but I wish with all of my fiber that he would utilize sites like mine, Long Zheng’s, Paul Thurrott’s, Mary Jo Foley’s, etc. to push a positive Windows campaign at some point. You know, the ball started rolling with Longhorn way before it should have (which is undoubtedly a reason why Sinofsky and crew are so tight-lipped). All the features that were promised, the Windows UI at the time… Longhorn certainly had that magic stripped away when they went through the reset. Remember going from installing the WinHEC 2004 build of 4074 to WinHEC 2005′s build of 5048? Yikes.
Anyway, I’m quite sure Microsoft learned a lesson with what they promised to deliver, so if they’re *sure* they can meet the deadlines and go gold by January of 2010, as well as come through with the technology they promise to deliver when they finally open the lid on Windows 7, I think it would behoove them GREATLY to leverage their enthusiast base. I know some of these enthusiast sites are “small potatoes” in the grand scheme of things but even if it’s to convince just ONE person to buy Windows 7, aside from the labor cost (which is already factored in and couldn’t POSSIBLY be anything to lose sleep over) of having someone at MS communicate with us and help run whatever they could come up with, this is all free for them! Yeah, I know information trickles down anyway but I would personally love to see a process a little different than, “enthusiast scours the innanets for latest build, downloads build but worries about a key to install it so enthusiast finds a crack for it. Enthusiast installs build, hacks it to death and ends up posting information that’s just way off-base from anything relevant to a non-enthusiast Windows user and/or is ultimately useless in the grand scheme of things.” Quite simply, I would love nothing more than to be involved directly with MS regarding Windows 7 (something more than landing on the beta that everyone and their grandmother is on) in SOME capacity. Maybe that’s ridiculous or asking too much but when you have people who essentially promote Windows for a HOBBY, I think there’s something for Microsoft to tap into there.
Ultimately, I believe such an effort would help to place (and more importantly, maintain) quite a positive spin on Windows 7 and if Microsoft can back the promises, I don’t foresee any, “Flirtatious Business Thoughts: From Windows XP to… Windows 8?” articles in store for 2010/2011!
-Stephen
Personally I think any W7 information should be kept under complete lockdown until there is a viable beta, and even then there should be a round of NDA locked limited betas before the consumer betas.
I’d much rather MSFT underpromise and overdeliver because Vista got trounched and it’s still suffering from bad press, regardless of the fact that most of the negative thoughts are pure FUD. Press at this point will is set people’s expectations to such a high level that no matter what W7 can do it’ll pale in the eyes of everyone that has held it aloft.
The reality is that only the inner circle of nerds like us really care that much about W7, the mass public, the ones that actually keep the lights on at Microsoft, could care less until it turns into a real decision for them down at the BestBuy.
Right. I completely agree and what you said is exactly what I meant by if Microsoft decided to include us in their Windows 7 *anything* at any point (not necessarily right this moment by any means), they should do as such only under information given which they can deliver in the end. Yes, the spotlight hit Longhorn way beforehand and now Windows 7 is seeing a similar progression happen but as long as Microsoft doesn’t give an outer-wordly and eye candy-rific demonstration of Windows 7 ala Hillel Cooperman’s PDC ’03 demonstration of Longhorn, they’ll be good to go with just how fast the ball starts rolling.
From there, they could definitely exercise what to let out, sans the obvious intangibles like build leaks, internal memo leaks, blah, blah, blah. I just think that, at the right time, Microsoft could very well utilize sites like this to generate positive Windows 7 energy and maintain it. Naturally, I could be completely wrong but, yeah. lol.
^^ i agree with you completely and i dont understand why Microsoft doesnt reach out to community sites like this! or heck, even forums for that matter.
they could use places like these as launch pads to getting the most up-to-date info, regardless of what they let out, it could be a one on one connection with someone at Microsoft, and um not talking about exploiting info….i mean a great place to get real info instead of rumours and speculation….and n00bs playing a guessing game
personally i’m not expecting a lot from Win7, i mentioned at joejoe.org that i thought of it being like Longhorn in the fact that Longhorn was a step between XP and Blackcomb…
but i guess with no info to really go by….this could all be lies!lol
peas
cityboy