Vista and Windows 7

     Microsoft is having a problem, a huge one that is only becoming apparent these days. The announcement that the Windows 7 Milestone 1was released to a first batch of testers which included an update of the release schedule made it clear that we might be less than two years away from the public retail release of Windows 7.

I’m not sure why no one pointed this out yet but this announcement can have huge implications for Microsoft and the sales figures of Windows Vista. It is my understanding that the majority of sales of Windows Vista stem from sales bundled with hardware and not from sales to users migrating from another operating system.

     Many companies are waiting for the Service Pack 1 of Windows Vista before they will make the migration and I actually know quite a lot that are still using Windows 2000 as the main operating system in their network.

     The question that arises is if it makes sense to migrate to Windows Vista at all or if it would make more sense to wait another two years, use the previous operating system (XP, 2000) in that period and make the migration to Windows 7directly after that time.

     Several of my colleagues are already comparing Windows Vista to Windows ME which failed miserably back then as a Windows 98 successor.

It does not make sense financially as well. Migrate to Windows Vista now to migrate to another system in 2-3 years already ? To be fair, companies that did wait that long before migrating to Windows Vista would probably wait an equal amount of time before migrating to Windows 7.

     My personal projection sees an increase in Windows Vista sales especially with the release of Service Pack 1 but many users and companies who are using Windows XP will most likely skip this operating system and wait for the innovative Windows7 instead.