MYOB ensures Windows 7 compatibility

Australian accounting software developer MYOB has rolled out Windows 7 to 50 development and IT support staff as part of an effort to ensure the company's small business software was compatible with the new operating system.

"If you look at our client base, we have no control over the end user's desktop," said Jason Noorman, MYOB's chief technology officer. "We know we have some clients on very old equipment and operating systems, but others that are really early adopters.

"We needed to be on the front foot and be Windows 7 compatible and we were one of the first companies in the country to have full Windows 7 certification for our SME products.

"Is it significant business value? We don't know because we don't know the rate of adoption of our end clients."

MYOB's developers used Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit to ensure its code wouldn't cause problems under Windows 7.

"We built an environment, tested our software and it told us, 'Here are the things you need to do to get Windows 7 compatibility'," said Noorman.

"We found some hooks in our application that dated back to Windows 2000, for example providing connectivity between our application and Outlook. For Windows 7 compatibility, we had to clean some of them up. We didn't have to rewrite huge chunks of code, it was a really straightforward process.

"From our product point of view, it's been the most seamless and painless process that we've gone through for a core operating system upgrade."

The company is now looking to upgrade the remainder of its 900 desktops to the new operating system over the course of 2010.

"We are fully licensed to make the upgrade, it's just a matter of getting the manpower to get it rolled out," said Noorman.