Would you hold off buying 09-10 PCs to get Windows 7?

Will Microsoft get Windows 7 out the door this summer? It's certainly starting to look that way. However, while this might be fine for students headed back to school wishing to snag a new PC with the latest OS out of Redmond, it should really be meaningless for our FY10 purchasing.

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Although early looks at 7 have been quite positive with some reviewers even suggesting that we don't need to wait for the standard service pack, I just don't think there will be adequate time to fully test software and services during the summer break if we hold off on purchasing until July or August.

Although I'm not inclined to purchase new computers pre-loaded with an OS I'd like to replace shortly, I've already trained my users in both XP and Vista and know that all of my software will run quite happily on both. While we can generally assume that software and hardware compatible with Vista will run with 7, there's too much riding on our first day this fall to have new operating systems installed in August.

All of the new hardware I purchase this summer will either be running Vista or Ubuntu, depending upon the environment and application. Windows 7 will have to wait.