Windows 7 Migration Survey Finds Application Compatibility is Top Concern

Atlanta, Georgia, April 6, 2011 – Matrix42, the leading supplier of Workplace Management solutions, conducted a survey* on Windows 7 migration plans at this year's CeBIT conference. The study found that the vast majority of organizations are currently planning or performing a migration to Windows 7 for their desktop environment. However, many respondents identified challenges, with application compatibility and the time and effort to migrate being cited most often.

Compatibility considered major concern
A central result of the survey is that 76 percent of organizations are currently migrating or planning a desktop migration to Windows 7. But migrating is not without its challenges: 38% of all respondents cited application compatibility as their major concern, while 24% are worried about the time and effort involved and 21% about the readiness of their organization’s hardware.

Discontinued XP support is key driver
According to the survey, Microsoft’s discontinued support for Windows XP is the main driver for migrating to Windows 7: 44% of the respondents named it as their main reason for the migration. Less cited reasons were Windows 7’s security improvements (24%) and expected gains in end user productivity (19%). Only 7% cited reduced support costs and efforts from Windows 7 as primary drivers.

Gradual approaches preferred
Most organizations prefer a gradual migration to the new operating system, with 42% planning to migrate by attrition and another 36% planning to migrate by department or group. The remaining 21% of the companies are taking a “forklift” approach to migrating to Windows 7 – most of them, however, are small companies (39%).

Lessons learned
What insights can organizations planning a Windows 7 migration take away from the Matrix42 survey?

• Operating system (OS) migrations can be complicated, with a high potential for issues to arise. However, for most companies, Windows 7 will not be the first OS migration.
• Looking back, previous migrations should be analyzed and learnings should be taken into account. Enough time should be spent upfront for planning the migration process.
• Although it might seem time-consuming, all necessary steps should be taken to minimize the migration’s impact on end users as much as possible. Specialized tools can help to migrate users’ personal settings and local data quickly and easily so their productivity is minimally affected.
• Application and hardware compatibility issues with Windows 7 do not need to be roadblocks. Windows 7 compatibility checking, diagnosis, and remediation can be automated with software built especially for that purpose.

The full survey can be downloaded here.

*In total, 75 attendees at CeBIT 2011 took part in this survey. 44 percent of the respondents work for companies with less than 100 desktops, 36 percent work for medium-sized companies, and 20% work for big companies with up to 15,000 desktops.

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