As the economy sinks further and further into recession, the tech industry continues to feel the bite. With Circuit City closing, giants like Google and Microsoft laying off employees, and losses being reported across the board, the situation looks bleak. The likes of Merryl Lynch and GMC have received bail-outs from the government, but no such luck has reached Silicon Valley. Could the release of Windows 7, then, bail out IT?
According to everyone’s best guess, Windows 7 is slated for release this fall. Though not groundbreaking, it will be faster, more secure, and more user-friendly than its big brother. Microsoft has been less than pleased with the rate of Vista adoption and is eager to get users away from XP.
According to the latest figures, 72% of Americans are running XP, compared to 18% for Vista. Home users make up the bulk of the latter, while the former is mostly comprised of business users unwilling to make the switch. Coincidentally, the majority of computer and software sales are made to businesses, but it is this group that is most stubborn in upgrading. Corporate America wants stability and security in its computers. After all, if things don’t work then money is lost. They generally wait until a product has matured before upgrading.
The problem is, by the time the CPA down the street is ready to upgrade to Vista, Windows 7 will be available en masse. The fact of the matter is XP has been around since 2001, a time when computers shipped with Pentium 3 processors and 256 MB of RAM. The too-stubborn-for-Vista crowd will have to upgrade to something more modern eventually, and Windows 7 will be the time for them to do so. Though a new operating system, it is just an improved version of Vista with more stability and ease of use. Business users will realize that it combines the new features of Vista with the best of XP and flock to upgrade in droves. The same thing happened in 2001 — during a recesssion, also — when Windows 98 users skipped over Windows ME and upgraded to XP.
Read more of this article here: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2009/02/25/020416.php
