Gartner: Businesses don’t need to wait until Windows 7 Service Pack 1
It has always been a standard for businesses to wait until Service Pack 1 before deploying any version of Windows. Windows 7 hasn’t even hit the RC test phase yet but Gartner analysts are already suggesting to organizations to not use Service Pack 1 as a guideline as to when to deploy Windows 7. (Gartner is an information technology research and advisory firm in the US and is listed on the NYSE)
Conventional wisdom has been that organizations need to wait for the first Service Pack to ship before they deploy a new client OS. This used to be a necessity. The availability of beta software to test the new product was not as broad as it is today, and people expected the initial release to be buggy and unstable. The first Service Pack usually would ship approximately nine to 12 months after the initial OS shipment, and would usually represent a marked improvement in stability. Today, SP1 does not represent the milestone it used to.
Gartner also provides multiple reasons to back up their belief of why businesses shouldn’t plan to wait:
- More than five times as many users will run Windows 7 Beta than Windows 95. Furthermore, the tools that Microsoft uses to collect usability data did not exist in Windows 95.
- Unlike with XP where security testing was done after development, Microsoft now does security testing while it develops its code. This helps decrease the number of potential security fixes that would usually be included in SP1.
- Security updates are not issued via Windows Update on a monthly basis and can be received as soon as they are released. Before XP, the only way to get a security patch was to open a support incident with Microsoft.
Gartner is only suggestion that SP1 is no longer a useful indicator of OS readiness. There are still a number of prerequisites an OS must satisfy before a company should consider deploying it. Things companies should consider are: Independent Software Vendor support, browser issues, and time for internal preparation.
It usually takes organizations 12 to 18 months to evaluate and deploy an OS. In addition to their previous statements, Gartner tells organizations not to rush the process but also not wait for SP1, although you may want to do it anyway despite what they said earlier…
Organizations should not expect to deploy Windows 7 until 12 to 18 months after the OS ships. Although SP1 will probably be part of the initial deployment image, organizations won’t be waiting for it because other requirements will take longer to resolve. Including SP1 with Windows 7 could result in increased stability because fewer changes need to be introduced to the environment over the life cycle.
via ZDNet
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Tags: windows 7, windows 7 sp1
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10 Responses to “Gartner: Businesses don’t need to wait until Windows 7 Service Pack 1”
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Microsoft Chief’s are talking many, many things, and I stopped to believe in this things a long time ago. They said f.e. that Vista is going to be the uber-OS, but it never got. I want to wait until I can mbuild my own opinion. But the Beta’s from 7 really look good atm.
My mistake, I thought Gartner would be some leading person from Microsoft. Sounds like a Surname.
Haha no it’s a company name. Tough situation for MS since most people wait until SP1, but I think it’s their fault for creating such a culture around their OS. If they had previously matched SP1 quality in previous OS like Vista and XP, they wouldn’t have this problem with deployment
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Hey, nice tips. Perhaps I’ll buy a bottle of beer to that person from that chat who told me to visit your site
Thanks for visiting. What chat?
[...] Gartner: Businesses don’t need to wait until Windows 7 Service Pack 1 It has always been a standard for businesses to wait until Service Pack 1 before… [...]
[...] Gartner: Businesses don’t need to wait until Windows 7 Service Pack 1 It has always been a standard for businesses to wait until Service Pack 1 before… [...]
[...] Gartner: Businesses don’t need to wait until Windows 7 Service Pack 1 It has always been a standard for businesses to wait until Service Pack 1 before… [...]
[...] Gartner: Businesses don’t need to wait until Windows 7 Service Pack 1 It has always been a standard for businesses to wait until Service Pack 1 before… [...]