Late yesterday I was answering a question from John Clough about business software selection in the context of on-demand applications and SAPs A1S in particular. One of the things I said was:
A1S and similar solutions provide businesses with zero upgrade requirements meaning their infrastructure can last almost indefinitely or alternatively go to a wholly mobile environment at low replacement cost (£3-500/user).
At the time, I was really thinking about operating systems and hardware. Then I saw David Berlind’s piece in which he asks: By 2010, will Windows ‘Seven’ (or any desktop OS) really matter? I don’t usually read about such things but given what I said to John, David’s piece made a lot sense. Much later, I saw Ryan Stewart’s piece entitled: The desktop OS will still matter, just not which one. Ryan says:
By 2010 desktop operating systems will still matter, but hopefully which operating system you use won’t matter. Bringing the web closer to the desktop world is important but won’t eliminate what makes the desktop OS good.
Ryan’s piece references one of my blog colleagues Zoli Erdos who asks in the context of a web-enabled world: Why Would We Need a New Desktop OS? and says:
For productivity / business use, the trend is just the opposite: with the move to Web Applications, we need less CPU, storage, memory (well, maybe not that, with zillions of FireFox tabs open…). Since I switched to Web Apps, I barely ever hear the fan come up in my trusted old laptop.
If you’re happy with this argument then it helps to know when Microsoft will likely retire support for Windows XP? According to Preston Gralla and Dave Methvin, it will be 2014 and even then there is a good chance that it will be strung out a little longer.
If you want to take advantage of new applications and services, the fact you’ve got 7 years in which to think about operating systems might be good reason for considering on-demand applications. At least hardware upgrades won’t likely be an issue, with the inevitable operating system upgrade. That breathes oxygen into IT budgets that would otherwise not exist. Given that hardware used to be replaced on a 3 year cycle, that’s worth factoring into business case calculations.
Technorati Tags: innovation, Microsoft
