Lawrence Dignan
Upgrade now
Not so fast
Christopher Dawson
Best Argument: Not so fast
Audience Favored: Not so fast (69%)
Closing Statements
The circle of life
Lawrence Dignan
It's true that Windows 8's new Start Screen and accompanying Windows 8 Store applications may not have a ton of drivers to compel business to upgrade right away. And those enterprise that have just finished upgrading to Windows 7 may not see much value in the Windows 8 -- yet.
But there are still many enterprises that are stuck on Windows XP and have delayed desktop refreshes for a long time, using large numbers of end-of-life systems. It makes sense for them to go with what is on the OEM preloads, which will be Windows 8. And enterprises which have Windows 7 can easily assimilate new PCs with Windows 8 into their existing environments without a whole lot of fuss, since the new OS runs all of Windows 7's applications.
Wait until Service Pack 1
Christopher Dawson
The problem is that all of this new hardware, all of these new approaches, and the overall move towards touch is very much in its infancy. The question isn't whether users and businesses will embrace Windows 8 but rather when they should. Now is the time for pilots, exploration, and testing. However, when so many businesses have only recently migrated fully to Windows 7, even more are struggling in a stagnant economy, and Windows 8 delivers most of its value through touch (which is hardly ubiquitous outside tablets and smartphones), businesses should be sticking to the "Wait until Service Pack 1" rule before adopting Windows 8 en masse.
Windows 8 not ready for business
Jason Hiner
This debate offered two legitimately different perspectives on how the enterprise should approach Windows 8 deployments on the desktop. As Larry pointed out, if you're still on Windows XP, there's an argument to be made for just moving your latest upgrades to Windows 8 and not Windows 7. It could save you some effort later, and Windows 8 does offer security and performance improvements that aren't insignificant. However, because of Windows 8 being so tied to the touchscreen experience, I have to agree with Chris that Windows 8 "is really not optimized for a standard desktop computing experience." And, for that reason, he gets the nod and businesses should be very wary about using Windows 8 on their standard PCs. There's just not enough value to match all of the pain and inconvenience of learning a radical new user interface.
Talkback
Now this will be interesting...
Personally, I'm for a more hybrid approach, as Larry hints at the end of his opening statement. I think that some new Windows 8 machines could be added to a Windows 7 environment without many complications. This would especially be true for hybrid PCs for those in the field. Rather than pay for a $1000 daily-driver laptop, why not pay for a $1000 iCore hybrid PC with a dock? I don't know that I would go Atom in the enterprise (though Dell's Latitude tablet is compelling with its replaceable battery).
As for XP houses skipping Windows 7 for 8, I'm undecided. I could argue this, but I think you'd need to do extra prep work due to the new interface. Win 7 is less of a jump for sure, but there will still be moaning and complaining with that. Why not deal with all the problems at once? I could make the arguement either way, and really it depends on the organization and the competency of the people. If you are dealing with an organization where not many of the employees are tech-savvy, then no. Go with 7. But if the organization has more of a technical aptitude or is used to changing software, etc., then maybe go with 8.
This will be an interesting argument for sure.
Win 8 Hybrids can help.
customer service
Opps. Meant argument
Windows 8 or W8 ~ [Wait]
Worrying however to hear that HP has stated that they will not (always?) support downgrading PC's. I am sure customers will be looking for PC's that do support downgrading to Windows 7 and prefer those than support this over the Windows 8 only choices.
Not necessarily. I work for a university and we are movimg to Windows 8
And not all of us have finished
with you
Incompatiblities?
As for legacy software, besides a switch from 32 to 64 bits or switching from IE 9 to 10 I don't see where things would work in 7 and not in 8.
Unless you were referring to XP, but then the same issues would pop in both Windows 7 and 8.
Besides the missing start menu and the removal of Aero glass, nothing's different on the desktop sides of 7 and 8, Windows 8 being even a little faster.
8 is not just 7 with touch support
At first I thought it was great, but it's turned into a nightmare. What no one is mentioning is MS went absolutely crazy with security. Users who just do wordprocessing, spreadsheets, email, etc., won't know the difference. But power users who edit scripts, etc., quickly find out 8 keeps refusing edit/run permissions. Even running something as administrator isn't high enough.
Of course, like most power users, I may not use a script every few days. So I didn't notice at first.
Also, older machines that run 7 fine may not even install 8. 8 REQUIRES a processor that supports PAE and the NX/XD bit. My "built from spare parts" computer (2005-era mobo & socket 478 Celeraon) runs 7 but after the install spent 90 minutes copying files, etc., just as it was about to finish it gave me an error code indicating "processor not supported". Turns out the socket 478-series processors don't support the NX(AMD)/XD(Intel) bit.