Arrival of the new Microsoft operating system open discussions on migration season for corporate users.

The groups Doux and Pif Paf Foods brand owners are recognized in the food industry. The first, of French origin, employs over 14,000 people worldwide and sells products in the domestic market under the brand names and Frangosul LeBon. Have the miner Pif Paf, in turn, accounts for 4,000 employees and sells each month, 12 000 tonnes of pork and poultry, and processed products to approximately 50,000 customers in the country and abroad.

But beyond the size and area of ​​expertise, both groups have something in common. They are part of 97% of companies in Brazil, using the Windows platform and operating system of your computer s, according to the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV).

Moreover, both the manager of information technology at Pif Paf, Augusto Carelli, as Chief Executive Officer (CIO) group Doux, Rafael Nicolela not intend to migrate, in the short term for the new generation operating system from Microsoft , the Windows 7 , which hits the market Oct. 22.

A survey conducted by Computerworld in August, with 130 CIOs, indicates that the decision to Nicolela Carelli and is in line with the rest of the market. Although 59.56% of executives responded that they intend to make the Windows 7 operating system default of their companies, 33.09% of them must do so within the period between one year and two years and others 52.94% have not set a estimate.

The calculation of Gartner is that Windows 7 begins to gain membership of the corporate market from the second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011. This is the average time regarded by analysts as plausible for a company to evaluate the replacement of the operating system used on their computers .

According to Gartner, companies need this period to be assured that all your applications and hardware will be supported by Windows 7 and to put into practice pilot tests with the new operating system. "It is practical to wait to get out the first operating system patches, to have a response from the market and that the main problems that usually come with the operating system to be solved," says Rodrigo Suzuki, manager of IT PromonLogicalis.

What is the benefit?
The decision to replace the operating system should be based primarily on analysis of cost-benefit that the new product and the process of migration will bring to the business.

It is difficult to establish how much a company spends to make the operating system migration. Experts consulted by Computerworld say that this is delicate to estimate because the value varies depending on various aspects such as number of machines involved and the complexity of the computing environment, among other factors. "It's not cheap, because the operating system is the heart of the business," says the person in charge of technology consulting Everis in Brazil, Felipe Dáguila.

Therefore, it is necessary to clearly identify which gains the corporation will have to do the replacement, either in an increased level of security, new features of the new operating system or as required by business needs. Need to close the account. "Migrate to migrate does not make sense," says the director of the information technology consultancy Accenture, Ricardo Chisman.

In group Doux, about 900 of the 1200 computers using the Windows XP operating system as standard. The other 300 machines still use Windows 2000 because they were licensed to him and did not have sufficient hardware requirements for running XP. The company chose not to increase this capacity. The decision was maintained when Microsoft introduced Vista, not conquered space in the company's food business. "It was not clear the benefit of migrating to the new operating system," says Nicolela.

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XP still dominates
The Forrester Research analyzed the desktops of more than 85,000 users in 2,600 companies between July 2008 and March 2009. At the end of this period, it was found that 86% of computers used XP as operating system, against 11.9% share of Vista. In search of Computerworld, the scenario is similar, with 71.43% of companies with Windows XP, Vista with 19.78% and others 8.79% with Windows 98.

"Today, our system is basically XP and it serves us so well that the last evaluation was done at the beginning of last year, when we bought a large batch of notebook s, "says Carelli, responsible for an environment with 750 computers.

A further significant penetration of Windows XP in the corporate market hinders but at the same time, encourages migration to Windows 7, especially from 2010 and 2011. As Microsoft announced it will support XP until 2014, CIOs who have opted to skip Vista still have one or two years to decide to migrate to Windows 7, in order to complete the process even within the support of XP.

The manager of information technology group Doux says that when evaluating the possibility of changing the operating system, he considers, first, that the manufacturer maintains the support and security updates to the current version. "If so, my concern is less to migrate. But there comes a time in which this is critical, "says Nicolela.

The executive lived in practice the need to switch to a newer version of the operating system in 2007, when about 50 machines the company has worked with Windows 98. The computers were the target of virus attack, due to security weaknesses of the old operating system.

The general manager of the Windows division at Microsoft Brazil, Alessandro Belgamo, says the manufacturer does not indicate a deadline for corporations to give beginning to migrate to its next operating system. He said that decision varies according to the CIO's own profile and, of course, the company's needs. "We encourage the adoption of Windows 7 because this is the most modern technology, has passed all quality tests for various feedback of millions of people around the world," says Belgamo.

XP vs. Windows 7
In practice, the challenge that Windows 7 will face is gaining the confidence of CIOs used to XP and dissatisfied with Vista. According to 62.5% of the executives who participated in the survey of Computerworld, the next generation of Windows will be better than its precursor, but for 11.76% of them, Windows 7 is not better than XP. And 19.85% of respondents have no opinion about the product.

The rejection suffered by Vista gave up for weaknesses in the operating system for compatibility of hardware and software. It is a fact that each new generation, operating systems require hardware resources more stocky. Moreover, after seven years of existence of Windows XP, the configuration of computers available in the market was virtually leveled and standardized to run the operating system. With Vista, the requirement for these needs has increased dramatically. "The shops were commonly found in machines with 256 MB of memory. We were looking forward, "explains the general manager of the Windows division at Microsoft Brazil.

Microsoft warrants that this problem has been resolved in Windows 7. According Belgamo, one of the concerns in the development of new operating system was to ensure better performance - which is linked not only to hardware requirements, but the operation of the platform as a whole.

In short, Windows 7 is "smarter" than Vista. He is able to identify whether a USB port is not in use, turning it off automatically. Thus, the energy that would be used to hold the door in place is spared, ensuring longer battery life for notebooks, for example. "This is also performance and improvement. It is the result of research, "said Belgamo. For years, Microsoft invests about 9.5 billion dollars in research and development - not only in Windows, of course.

Since Windows 7 is more like Vista than with XP, migrating to Windows 7 will be easier for those who adhered to Vista? In general, the closer the operating system versions, fewer problems occur. But this is not the rule.

So much so, that the guidance from Microsoft is that Windows 7 installation is done from the beginning, and not as an upgrade versions. In the case of Vista, it is even possible that Windows 7 is installed as an upgrade, but for XP, the process must necessarily be done from scratch.

Among the aspects that may hinder the progress of Windows 7 in the enterprise segment, again, is the crisis. According to Gartner, the current situation, in which technology budgets suffer cuts, many corporations may delay the onset of the migration process to Windows 7 until the first half of 2011.

Critical points of migration
Compatibility. This is the biggest concern of chief technology relative to OS migration. The success of this process depends on certain applications and hardware work properly with the new version of the platform.

"In general, we put more attention to ensure we have continuity in terms of applications. This goes for both versions and migration of different operating systems, "says Ricardo Chisman, Accenture.

It is also necessary to assess whether the hardware configuration of the computers in use has breath enough to work with the new operating system. A migration from Vista to Windows 7 is less sensitive to hardware issue, because the need of the two systems is similar. Regarding XP, the hardware requirements are higher. "Now we have a number of machines and newest Vista compatible and hence with Windows 7," says Belgamo.

According to Microsoft, 10 000 hardware and software partners, the company evaluated the evolutionary versions of Windows 7, giving feedback and suggesting changes. And part of that work included examining the compatibility with devices and applications.

The general manager of the Windows division at Microsoft Brazil states that, currently, the rate of compatibility of the new operating system software with major global suppliers varies from 95% to 97%. In addition, Microsoft has decided to bring Brazil a global initiative called "Application Compatibility Factory" (Application Compatibility Factory), which works closely with local developers to ensure compatibility of applications with Windows 7.

With a focus on even smaller partners, Microsoft created the Application Compatibility Brazil Academy (Academy Application Compatibility - ACA) to conduct trainings, road shows and offer online training courses.

To encourage corporations to leave XP behind and adopt Windows 7 versions of the new operating system aimed at the corporate market have a feature that emulates a virtual machine where applications compatible only with XP can run. The solution is called XP Mode and Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), respectively, in the Professional and Enterprise.