“If you can, you should skip Windows 7 because there are significant benefits to that software over 7. If you have started migration to 7, the quickest thing to do is to complete your migration with the image you’ve already built and then look for ways in which Windows 8.1 can help you,” he says.
“It will sit beside Windows 7 and can be managed by the same background infrastructure.”
Virtual solution
One of the ways that companies can deploy new operating systems is through virtualisation technology, but Ward has mixed feelings about the merits of this approach. He says it has pros and cons and that the best thing to do is to match the way in which your organisation uses its technology to the way it is deployed.
“Any desktop strategy needs to look at the groups of users its serves and what their needs are,” he says.
“There’s a big difference between an organisation with 100 PCs being used to run AutoCAD and 100 PCs being used to run a CRM application. The reality of course is that things are never that cleanly split — companies usually have a mix of these kinds of users and one or two other types as well,” says Ward.
He identifies three distinct groups that need to be catered to — power, mobile and light users.
“Power users are people like engineers or others who need something like AutoCAD or some other sophisticated line of business application. They’re probably better off working on machines running local software on the PC itself which will have specific needs in terms of memory and processer and so forth,” says Ward.
The second group are mobile users such as a sales team that use lightweight devices such as tablet-PCs-in-one.
“These people typically use something like the Dell Venue 11 or the Surface Pro II which is very light and portable but which can give access to all the corporate resources they need.”
The third group are task workers, people doing repetitive tasks who only need fairly light applications and who might only need a thin PC with a virtualised desktop solution.
“I wouldn’t recommend virtualising the entire organisation, but it may be suitable for a certain number of roles in the organisation,” says Ward.
Windows 8.1 is more recent and a good choice for organisations with a mobile work force and a dependency on tablet PCs and devices. Given Windows 8 is a comparatively new OS, you are mitigating against the end of support issue for many years to come, Andrew Miller, Unity Technology Solutions
Tested and true
One of the advantages to companies considering a move to Windows 7 is that it has been available for four years making it stable and well supported, says Andrew Miller, head of sales and marketing for Unity Technology Solutions.
“This is a significant factor. On the other hand, Windows 8.1 is more recent and a good choice for organisations with a mobile work force and a dependency on tablet PCs and devices,” he says.
“Given Windows 8 is a comparatively new OS, you are mitigating against the end of support issue for many years to come.”
Miller suggests that running an operating system that is more than a decade old will force you into a corner, particularly when it comes to compatibility of peripherals and devices.
“Newer technologies are designed and developed with the latest operating systems in mind. But even leaving that aside, the requirement to migrate from Windows XP may present an opportunity for some organisations to move away from Windows and onto an alternative operating system, like Apple or Chrome.”
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