Businesses already preparing Windows 8 upgrade plans

By Tom Warren, on 1st Nov 11 4:33 pm with 32 Comments

Windows 8 Tablet at BUILD 2011

A survey has revealed that a large number of businesses are already planning to upgrade to Windows 8.

Business IT organizations are already beginning to plan their Windows 8 deployment plans. A study of 973 IT pros by InformationWeek has revealed that Windows 8 is already on IT organizations radar. “We were surprised that, even at this early stage, Windows 8 is already on the radar for many IT organizations,” said Art Wittmann, VP and director of research and reports at InformationWeek.

Microsoft is currently preparing a beta copy of Windows 8 before it ships a Release Candidate and final version next year. The software giant has previously urged businesses to carry on migrating to Windows 7 instead of waiting on Windows 8. InformationWeek’s findings show that businesses are clearly eager to understand how Windows 8 will impact their environments. Around 90% of businesses are already committed to migrating away from Windows XP and Office 2003 and to modern software such as Windows 7 combined with Office 2010.

Microsoft recently cited a Gartner report from September entitled “Don’t change your Windows 7 plans because of Windows 8.” The report suggests it would be dangerous for businesses to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8. “Organizations running Windows XP and working on Windows 7 migrations: Continue as planned; do not switch to Windows 8,” says Gartner. The advice follows concerns that businesses will not find the time to upgrade to Windows 8 by the April 2014 cut off point for mainstream support.

The promise of full tablet computing with Windows 8 will likely interest business and enterprise users of Windows. A number of fortune 500 companies are currently trialing Apple iPad devices in their organizations due to the lack of a true Windows tablet offering. The introduction of a Windows 8 operating system with tablet support and backed by Microsoft’s impressive management and security solutions will likely entice IT organizations.

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  • rojo

    Wow. That’s crazy. Good for Microsoft.

  • http://www.elmsoftware.com elmsoftware

    I love this news site…but we that frequent this blog have seen that pic a lot.  Just sayin’.

  • J A

    This is a fact but not news.

  • Anonymous

    I hope Windows 8 does great, but honestly I think it will have to win over the consumer market first (which I think it will).  The start screen is as radical a change as Windows 95 was and I doubt any major company will be rushing to upgrade to it.  That being said, Win8 is going to have a lot of great business features: native ISO/VHD mounting, improved file transfer, improved task manager, Hyper-V, cloud synced profiles, ect…

    • Anonymous

      I almost forgot UEFI Secure Boot.  That might be the most important feature for businesses, especially considering the move toward laptops and the increased security threat of employees loosing them.

    • Anonymous

      I think the business market helps with the consumer market. employees will most likely buy a similar computer to their work since they are very familiar with it. Plus it allows them to either remotely access their work computer or work at home using a USB. To use a Mac or Linux, they will need to learn a new operating system. Despite what Apple says, the os is not intuitive and there is a learning curve. 

    • Anonymous

      On the other hand, huge success in the consumer market is driving businesses to support the iPhone.  I feel it will have the be the same way with Metro.  I don’t see any conservative IT department rushing to adopt Metro.  They will want to wait until the workforce themselves have become use to Metro through their consumer products, like W8 tablets.

  • Anonymous

    MS should really look at focusing WP for Business to. WP with Active Directory support can go a long way too much potential to ignore.

  • Anonymous

    Businesses will want Windows 8 for all the security, speed and new file system. Never mind Metro.

    • Anonymous

      I don’t know, I worked in a pretty typical office during their deployment of Vista.  Most of the older people bitched and moaned about their computers being broken, when in fact they just had to learn that some actions are done differently in Vista.  So if that much change was enough to make deployment a living hell for their IT department, what do you think will happen if they deploy Win 8 with Metro?  I hope Win 8 does great, but I am worried about resistance to adoption.

    • Anonymous

      Training is the solution to that problem.

    • Anonymous

      in many cases, repetitive training

    • Guest

      You’re assuming that enterprises won’t be able to modify W8 to boot directly to the desktop and present a W7-like start menu. That’s possible, but I doubt it based on the strong feedback Sinofsky has been getting.

      Anyway, MS knows it will takes years for enterprises to move to W8. Many will still be migrating to W7. If businesses keep moving to W7 but MS picks up a good deal of the consumer tablet business, I suspect MS will consider that mission accomplished.

  • http://www.mainstreetchatham.com/ JimmyFal

    I think that Windows 7 will be the stable equivalent of Windows XP in that it will be around for a long time. Windows 8 will have some elements of change that many people who do not like change may not be able to deal with, unless of course in a business environment they ditch the Metro screen. I’m thinking that Metro on the tablets will be most peoples introduction to Windows 8. It will be critical for MS to make the experience of going from Win8 on a slate to Win 8 on the desktop a seamless experience. I’m nervous about that from the PRE-beta that I have been using as my exclusive OS for the last couple of months. I hope the Beta will bring in a LOT of new stuff that makes things much more “discoverable” and will add TONS of right click features and better mouseability. VERY anxious to see Live Photo and Office on the Win8 Slate interface. These two experiences alone could make or break a lot of people.

    • Anonymous

      I think your analysis is spot on.  Microsoft needs to win over consumers first, especially with Win 8 tablets.  Then companies may feel more safe in upgrading their work force to Windows 8.  And yes, from my brief experience with the pre-beta, I hope to see a lot of changes in the beta.  I can’t believe you cannot scroll the start screen with the mouse unless you use that tiny bottom scroll bar.  I also have to admit I still have not found out how to shut down the computer without first logging off.  If that is by design then its a pain the ass.

    • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

      Yeah, scrolling with mouse/click is a necessity.  I’m sure it’ll come in a future build.  Also, that’s strange about shutting down.  I haven’t shutdown in some time but I thought it was start>settings  then you hit the power off option and it takes it from there.  I’ll have to revisit that… heh

    • Anonymous

      You may be right, I just never thought you would have to go to “Settings” to shutdown.

    • http://www.mainstreetchatham.com/ JimmyFal

      I got tired of logging off to shutdown as well, so I set the on/off button on the computer to do a shutdown. I also stopped using sleep altogether because on my SSD HD it boots before I have a chance to sit in my chair. Yeah not being able to use mouse to move as a finger would is really keeping me from using the Metro screen as much as I would if I had that ability. At the moment, I have no use for Metro, no apps to play with. IE10 sometimes but I don’t quite get how they will identify other running apps on Metro. Swiping in from the left is neat but I like being able to see what’s open they way the taskbar in Win7 tells me. I’ll wait and be patient. I would be curious to know if anyone else using Win8 has noticed that recently almost every single website pops up a “show all content” dialog at the bottom of the screen. Particularly on these blog sites. I cannot comment properly until I hit the prompt. Starting to get really annoying.

    • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

      The “Show all content” has been an happening a lot lately for me on blog sites.  It’s something with Internet Explorer’s settings because it wasn’t happening a few months ago but now it happens all the time with IE9 on Win7.  It’s getting very annoying.

    • Anonymous

      yh i agree

  • Seth_p

    Uhm, duh? lol

  • http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

    Windows 8. For 8 times the win.

  • Anonymous

    I’d like to upgrade but I am going to wait until service pack 1 is released.  

  • Anonymous

    How about upgrading first to Vista, then Windows 7 and then 8? That will surely make MS happy.

  • Anonymous

    even if 10% of windows users get a windows tablet, and that would be an epic failure, it still more than the entire usershare apple has of all ipads conbined. now you go think about that.

  • Anonymous

    All Microsoft thinks about is business business.. what about consumers.. like us.. was it why they killed Courier?

    • Anonymous

      Do you think WP7 was designed with a business over consumer mentality?

    • Anonymous

      WP7 was designed with consumer in mind, but is extendable to business just like the iPhone. There is a growing trend of companies allowing people to allow their employees’ smartphones onto the corporate network. That trend will be increasing, not decreasing.

    • Anonymous

      as we are told the courier was killed because it will annoy their “business partners”. Much of the reason why people have so much love Apple is that they make lifestyle products while Microsoft’s aim is to make a buck out of corporate establishments. 

  • Bing-gle

    I hope the win 8 beta release will coincide with new tablet hardware releases…

  • Orwell Would Be Proud

    Yeah, the EU’s collapsing, the US economy’s in freefall and major conflict’s likely only days away in the Middle East, yet corporate America’s sitting around with its feet up, holding weekend bake sales and eager to cough up the cost of upgrading to Windows 8, despite it having very little to offer the enterprise over Windows 7, an upgrade from XP on which they’re still making payments.

    Tell a lie often and earnestly enough and it become indistinguishable from the truth, but only for some…

    All the phony good press that money can buy – keep the laughs coming.

  • Shaadiekhas

    Microsoft is a big brand and It gave many trust able products. I always used Microsoft products. The trend is growing fast of Microsoft….