Gartner: Businesses don't need to wait for Windows 7 SP1
Summary: Windows 7 hasn't even hit the Release Candidate test phase, but already analysts at Gartner are advising business users they shouldn't plan to wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1) to arrive before planning deployments.
Windows 7 hasn't even hit the Release Candidate test phase, but already analysts at Gartner are advising business users they shouldn't plan to wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1) to arrive before planning deployments.
From a March 12 research note by Gartner analyst Michael Silver (a link to which Microsoft is distributing to various press folks):
"The first Service Pack for Windows 7 is not necessary for the operating system's stability and security readiness. However, organizations likely won't be ready to deploy Windows 7 before SP1 ships, so they will include it in their initial deployments."
The first part of Silver's statement is, no doubt, music to Microsoft's ears. Remember how much time and energy Microsoft officials spent trying to make the case that Vista was so solid that users didn't need to wait until SP1 to deploy it? (OK -- stop laughing now.)
Gartner is now saying what Microsoft officials have tried to assert for the past three years: SP1 shouldn't be the milestone businesses await before even starting to plan for new OS deployments. Silver wrote:
"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."
It's actually the second part of Silver's statement -- that most organizations won't be ready to deploy Windows 7 before SP1 ships anyway -- cuts to the heart of the matter, however.
Most businesses cannot turn on a dime. Even if they wanted to rush to deploy Windows 7 as soon as it is released, few would be able to do so, given the amount of app-compatibility testing typically required. Gartner is estimating it will take even the most Windows 7-enamored businesses 12 to 18 months to deploy the new OS. And by that time -- if Microsoft doesn't do what it did with Windows Server 2008 and declare that SP1 was already built into the first release -- SP1 for Windows 7 should be out.
It may seem early to be thinking about Windows 7 deployments -- especially for the growing number of businesses that are just now starting to implement widescale Vista deployments they've been working on for months, if not years. But if Microsoft really does release Win 7 to manufacturing in Q3 of this calendar year, as still sounds likely, maybe it's not as early as it seems....
What do you think of Gartner's premise? Will SP1 be an irrelevant deployment milestone for you when planning around future Windows deployments. Why or why not?
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Talkback
"OK ? stop laughing now"?
i have a problem with this sentence. i call myself an IT professional. I worked as a software developer since DOS 3.0. I have worked on whole range of operating system. i DO NOT think vista has anything to laugh about. this is a solid operating system, with a solid security system. and fluent interface. yes, some old apps stop working. but that's something we know before we use it.
people's opinion about vista is just as stupid as anything can be. I don't care that is how many millions' opinion.
Stop??? I just started
Re: Stop??? I just started
No, but you'd be a fool not to be testing so you don't fall to far behind.
Testing apps is far different from 'Don't wait for SP1 to Adopt'
I agree with deploying a few strategic servers, if only to identify an upgrade strategy. But I believe it unwise to throw out XP/Win 2k3 and just upgrade to Vista because Gartner says, "Naw, it's cool. Go ahead."
Test is OK.
I agree.
laughing
My point is it was laughable for Microsoft to claim, first, that Vista SP1 didn't exist. Then they claimed it might or might not. Then it was, yes, it exists, but it is far away, so don't wait for it.
These days, even Microsoft admits that SP1 made Vista more usuable for businesses. Microsoft execs now publicly admit that Vista wasn't ready for release when it RTM'd; it was sluggish and not at all ready, in terms of driver and app compatibility.
That is why I said "Stop laughing now." In hindsight, Microsoft's claim that Vista didn't require an SP1 to be ready for prime-time looks ridiculous.
Hope that helps explain my use of the phrase here. MJ
Vista's performance and compatability issues had little to do with...
So now you know more than MS?
Apparently you missed the following I wrote:
Funny how...
This is the best attempt at saving face you could muster?
There was no face to save.
@storm14k: I repeat: Apparently you missed the following I wrote:
Those words are right in line with what MS said. Which leads me to repeat something else I wrote:
"This is the best attempt at saving face you could muster? Seriously? I didn't write that much. It was a single paragraph with five sentences."
More specifically
Agree 100% (nt)
Disagree 100%
success, they had to build in backwards compatibility,
something they have claimed for every iteration of
Windows so far and something they have failed to do in
every iteration so far. Simply put, if you want massive
adoption of the new OS, then the existing software
[b]must[/b] be able to run on it in one form or another.
Even Microsoft's vaunted [i]"Compatibility Mode"[/i] has
been a dismal failure in every version of Windows since
'95.
No, the failure wasn't on the part of developers; it was
on the part of Microsoft, first on not ensuring new
drivers were available in time and second on not
allowing existing drivers to at least perform minimally
for compatibility with already-existing peripherals.
Vista was the result of a panic situation where
Longhorn was taking too long to develop and MS
realized they had to at least punch something out
before they lost relevance in the market. The problem
is, they stripped most of what Longhorn was supposed
to be in order to release what little they'd already
managed to develop. Win7 is likely to be what
Longhorn was intended to be from the beginning.
Fail
Vista fixed many, MANY known security, reliatbility, management and operations holes. Prevening non-admin accounts from writing to Program Files and large portions of the registry (HKLM), etc., caused MANY apps to break. Whilst MS did work with many of the larger app vendors to have them fix their apps, this was not anywhere near completion for RTM and there were thousands of smaller app vendors who'd not done their due dilligence and had not tested their apps on Vista and so they broke too.
Cycle forward 2 1/2 years.
Most apps have now been updated to no longer longer perform actions that require admin rights. Most apps no longer write to protected file and registry locations. If you still have apps that do so, complain to your app vendor.
Net-net: Win7 will have FAR less trouble on introduction than Vista ever did ... or could have had!
Still disagree
properly. Before that, everything I said before still stands.
It was rushed and underwent almost ZERO Quality
Control. This is NOT the hallmark of a company that
cares about their image.