Windows 7 Migration Without The Pain

This prescription for a pain-free migration to Windows 7 comes from a developer of application management software used by big companies, but most of the advice on how to plan for and manage your migration apply to any size company.

"Microsoft estimates that 65,000 organisations plan to migrate to the Windows 7 operating system (OS) over the next eighteen months. Even so, many enterprises delay such software refreshes because OS migrations are complex, challenging and time consuming, not to mention expensive. Hence, the archetypal tussle between short-term economic caution and long-term improved systems performance and business value. However, OS migration delays can prove to be costly in the long run. If migration projects get delayed for too long, enterprises can end up paying for custom support, under which access to critical security fixes can sometimes amount to thousands of pounds.

Many enterprises are held hostage by software transitions because preparing and deploying applications in a reliable, consistent manner is incredibly difficult; and requirements to ensure a successful migration are many—application discovery, cataloguing, compatibility testing, remediation and conversion, software packaging, application virtualisation and deployment to the cloud."