Regardless of the size of your business, if you’re a Windows shop, it’s just a matter of time before you migrate to Windows 7. And while it’s good practice to think positively about the inevitable, you’re probably already thinking about how migrating to a new operating system is disruptive. Even so, if you’re prepared, migration doesn’t have to be painful. Nor does it have to have a negative short-term impact on your business.
At the beginning of the year we published our first issue of The Confident SMB, which included an assessment of how businesses can turn a migration into a transformation. As the year moves forward, more and more people have made that transformation. In fact, by the end of 2010, 19 percent of the global IT workforce will be working with Windows 7. ¹
Consider that a Windows 7 migration is a unique opportunity to increase efficiency in your IT organization and to your business. For example, this is an excellent time to update client security. Same holds true for backing up the valuable data on your clients. And this is as good a time as ever to implement a virtualization strategy because many of your business’s critical applications and processes could be disrupted due to compatibility issues. And while migrating isn’t free, it’s an opportunity to save money. For example, application virtualization can enable the harvesting of unused licenses. While you probably need to pay for Windows 7, you don’t need to pay for licenses that you aren’t using.
Experience has taught me that you can have peace of mind when doing what may initially seem difficult. It’s all about preparation—and that comes in large part from understanding your options. At Symantec we provide options that can help you to better integrate technologies and gain greater visibility into your business’s IT infrastructure.
It makes sense that after you complete a Windows 7 migration you want your business to be in better shape, not worse. With the right tools and guidance, there isn’t any reason why that shouldn’t be the case.