Many of you may be on the market for a new Windows 7 PC. Our partners are delivering new PCs we think you will love and just in time for the holidays! Below are hot and slick looking Windows 7 PCs in categories we think will be big for holiday 2009.

Please note that many of the PCs with features mentioned below are just one of many configurations these PCs come with. Many of these PCs can be configured and customized to your liking.

All-in-one PCs:

• Sony VAIO L Series: Features a Quad Core processor, 24” widescreen touch display, discrete graphics, lots of memory and storage.
• Dell Studio One 19: Features a Quad Core processor, lots of storage, a Blu-ray combo drive and an 18.5" multitouch HD widescreen display.
• HP TouchSmart 300z Series: Features discrete graphics, an optional built-in TV tuner and a 20" multitouch widescreen display.

Ultra-thin PCs:

• Acer Aspire 4810T: Offers a 14" screen, good battery life, and weighs only 2.4 lbs.
• Dell Adamo 13: Features a slick looking aluminum chassis, 13.4" edge-to-edge HD display, ultra-slim .65" profile, Bluetooth and optional Mobile Broadband.
• Toshiba Satellite T135: Features a 13.3" HD widescreen display, full size keyboard, 1.5" profile and weighs 4.7 lbs.

Touch PCs:

• Lenovo ThinkPad T400smt: A lightweight Laptop PC with a 14.1" multitouch display, integrated webcam, and dual-channel digital microphone.
• Toshiba Satellite M500: Features a lightweight, 14.1" touch screen and specializes in mobility. Note that not all M500 models feature Windows Touch however.

Netbook PCs:

• HP Mini 110 by Studio Tord Boontje: Features both style and mobility with its 10.1" HD widescreen – and just 2.35 lbs.
• Toshiba mini NB205: Weighs 3 lbs., has 3G Mobile Broadband and good battery life.
• Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2: Features a multitouch pad, and a 10.1" LED backlit screen.

But wait! There’s more! Here are some other great PCs that really show off some of things customers do on their PCs everyday (yes, some people game every day):

Great Gaming PCs:

• Falcon NW Fragbox: A portable desktop PC with a Quad Core processor, discrete graphics, lots memory and storage.
• Alienware M17x: Features Dual GPUs, a Quad Core processor and 12GB of DDR3 memory (that’s a lot of memory!).
• Asus G51Vx: A 15" gaming laptop PC featuring NVIDIA graphics with dedicated 1GB of memory, and a backlit gaming keyboard.

More Multimedia PCs:

• Dell Studio XPS 16: Features premium ATI graphics, optional Intel Core i7 processor configuration, and your choice of either a 15.6" LED or 16" RGBLED seamless display.
• HP Pavilion dv8t: Features an 18.4" HD widescreen, Blu-ray drive, TV tuner, and premium sound system with subwoofer and Dolby audio.
• Toshiba Satellite A505: Features discrete graphics (certain configurations), a dual-core CPU, and premium surround sound speakers, and a HD 16" screen.
• Lenovo IdeaPad Y650: A very stylish, thin, and light notebook at only 1 inch thick and weighing only 5.6 lbs.

All Around Great Everyday PCs:

• Dell Studio XPS 13: Features a 13.3" edge-to-edge display, backlit keyboard and NVIDIA graphics.
• Toshiba Satellite U500: Versatility, power and style and touch capable. A 13.3” mobile do-it-all machine.

Work from Anywhere (Mobility):

• HP Pavilion dm3: Features a 13.3” ultra wide screen display and NVIDIA graphics, under 4 lbs. and 1 inch thin with great battery life.
• Lenovo ThinkPad X200T: Features a lightweight form factor, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and is a Tablet PC (great for taking notes during meetings!).

Safeguard Your Work:

• Lenovo ThinkPad X301: Features GPS, Bluetooth and Unified wireless capabilities.
• HP ProBook 5310: Features a 13.3” HD LED display with integrated mobile broadband and a thin and lightweight design.

We are also making it easier for customers to choose which Windows PC is right for them with an updated version of Windows PC Scout (previously known as Windows Laptop Scout).

Windows PC Scout has been completely updated with new PCs and new ways of helping customers better identify the PC they want based on their needs. Essentially Windows PC Scout “Simplifies your search” for the right PC. There are a couple of ways Windows PC Scout will help you find the PC you want:

• Laptop 101: Educates you on Laptop PCs.
• Usage: Discover how certain Laptop PCs are used for specific needs.
• Recommend: Match your needs with quality-checked Laptop PCs by Microsoft. Windows PC Scout provides clear recommendations on Windows PCs at a variety of price points.
• Buy: Once you’ve found a PC, Windows PC Scout makes it easy to click through to purchase the right PC for them through major retailers, the online Microsoft Store or PC manufacturer websites.

If you’re looking for a new Windows 7 PC – give Windows PC Scout a spin!

As you can see, there is such an amazing variety of Windows 7 PCs for you to choose!

As you already know, on August 7th we made Windows 7 RTM available to our Volume License (VL) customers who have Software Assurance (SA). Windows Server customers are able to download 2008 R2 as of August 14th and on September 1st, we announced VL customers without SA are able to purchase Windows 7 through Volume Licensing. With this broad availability to our business customers, I want to share TCO (“total cost of ownership”) data from early adopters, some feedback from enterprise customers, and advanced companion tools and applications to enable the best experience as businesses deploy Windows 7. We have a lot going on, so read on for all the details.

To support early migration to Windows 7, today we announced on the MDOP Team Blog that we will be releasing Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 in late October 2009, which I’ll also talk more about in a bit.

Deployments are happening right now and your company can begin deployment as well! Several of our early adopters are already having great success with Windows 7. I thought I would share some of the TCO findings from studies of three enterprise customer deployments. Customers involved in the studies were:

• Baker Tilly (Professional Services - UK): 2,200 users
• City of Miami (Local Government - US): 2,235 users
• Getronics (IT Services - Netherlands): 14,300 users

Some of the key TCO findings from the studies include:

• Direct cost savings of IT labor dedicated to PC management are expected to be in the range of $89-160 per PC annually. That means IT Pros are saving up to two hours per desktop annually. For companies with several thousand PCs, this frees up a lot of valuable time, allowing IT departments to focus on more mission critical efforts and support their business more efficiently.
• Overall, the $70-$160 in savings per PC annually represents reduction of IT labor costs ranging from a 10-20%. For example, Baker Tilly has been able to re-focus their IT force on strategic projects and estimates they’ll save 18% on PC management costs.
• Companies are realizing power savings with Windows 7 that add to the direct savings in IT Labor. For example, the City of Miami estimates their expected power savings alone ($54 per PC per year) justifies their Windows 7 deployment.
• City of Miami also expects to save big on service desk costs. Previously, the city IT staff had to physically travel to the PC user’s location to resolve support issues. Windows 7 has advanced capabilities such as Remote Desktop, which now help the IT staff to diagnose and resolve issues remotely, saving both travel time and end-user downtime. Built-in features like the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR) have been described as a “nugget of gold in the operating system.” Specifically, PSR helps users communicate problems to the service desk, reducing the need to dispatch technicians to user locations by as much as 90%.

These TCO studies represent a few of our Windows 7 customers. You can find out more by reading the full TCO studies. Here is what other early deploying customers are saying about savings and overall value:

Gokboru Kilic, Client Systems Professional, Turkcell:

We expect support costs to drop by 20 percent with Windows 7.

Andreas Viehauser, Head of Client and Software Management, Raiffeisen Informatik:

We are able to deploy to different computer devices using the same image file—helping reduce deployment time by 60 percent. What used to take three and a half hours now takes as little as one hour.

Miguel Lopez, Project Manager, F. Hoffman LaRoche:

With Group Policies and Windows 7, we’ll have more granular control over our computers and can more easily enforce how we govern our IT environment.

Henk Siereveld, Global IT Director, Bugaboo:

Our users love Windows 7. It provides an easier way of working, the interface is attractive, and it offers more functionality than our prior operating systems.

Mark McBeth, Vice President of IT, Starwood Hotels & Resorts:

From an IT perspective, we’ve received positive feedback on the performance and stability. For us, those are the very first things we look for in an OS for Sheraton.

John McConeghey, IT Manager, Pella

We opted to roll out Windows Server 2008 R2 in tandem with Windows 7 because there are synergies that we gain by deploying the two products together.

Similarly, customers who have deployed App-V from MDOP are also seeing significant savings. Our recent App-V Cost Reduction Study shows Microsoft App-V is THE desktop virtualization product that delivers immediate savings on the desktop. App-V is estimated to provide an annual savings of $156 in hard costs and $125 in user productivity, yielding a total savings of up to $280 per PC annually. 

We are happy to see so much excitement from early Windows 7 adopters, showing the real value Windows 7 provides enterprises. We recently asked Forrester to take a closer look at a broad set of enterprise customers to understand the real challenges of enterprises today and what is most important to them. Forrester surveyed over 318 senior IT decision makers and C- level IT executives in the US, Germany and Japan, with 78% of the respondent companies having over 500 PCs.

Key findings from their survey include:

• For 87% of companies, controlling costs is a critically or very important business priority.
• For 84% of companies, improving employee productivity is a critically or very important business priority.
• For 54% of companies, improving employee mobility is a critically or very important business priority.
• For 86% of companies, security is a critically or very important technology initiative.

As such - mobility, employee productivity and security requirements are surfacing as central challenges to the customer’s experience:

These companies support on average 174 Branch offices each; with only 38% of employees on average working in HQ; with 20% of the branch office workers dissatisfied with their access to corporate data.

• 68% of the companies struggle with the inability to manage PCs when those are not physically connected to the corporate network.
• 10% of the helpdesk calls are VPN-related.
• 23% of the helpdesk calls being related to users needing to install applications to do work and 14% of helpdesk calls are caused by users corrupting their systems by installing unauthorized software – overall an industry concern over malware management.

The study confirmed the real challenges of enterprises today which increase companies’ costs each year. With Windows 7 and MDOP, we developed Windows Optimized Desktop to target challenges to help address the customer’s most critical needs. It’s important to note that customers who deploy Windows 7 and MDOP with their existing server infrastructure will be able to expect significant value, user productivity, stronger data protection, and security and PC management. They can also expect automation improvements that can help them save costs and improve efficiency. The great news for customers here is that they do not have big dependencies on other deployment initiatives before they can realize the benefits of their Windows 7 deployment. However, if customers choose to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 with Windows 7, they can expect even greater cost savings, reduced complexity and increased user productivity.

We also continue to innovate on MDOP to ensure it serves as a valuable enabler to the deployment and management of Windows 7. As I already mentioned, we’ll be releasing MDOP 2009 R2 in late October. MDOP 2009 R2 will add Windows 7 support for all of the tools except MED-V, which will support Windows 7 in the first quarter of calendar year 2010 via MED-V 1.0 SP1. I recommend reading the MDOP Team Blog for more information on MDOP 2009 R2.

Furthering our efforts help companies deploy Windows 7, we recently announced the availability of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010. MDT 2010 is optimized to support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deployments, and has built-in capabilities to support customers migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7.

With the release of both MDOP 2009 R2 and MDT 2010, and other resources available on the TechNet and Springboard websites, customers can feel confident about the deployment support available for Window 7.

Now is the time to begin testing and deploying Windows 7 with MDOP and Windows Server 2008 R2!

Today at Nokia World 09, Nokia will be talking more about their upcoming new “mini laptop” the Nokia Booklet 3G which was announced last week.

 

Nokia has just announced that the Nokia Booklet 3G will ship with Windows 7. The Nokia Booklet 3G comes with built in A-GPS functionality. Because of this, it can take advantage of the Windows Sensor and Location Platform which means your PC and programs can know where they are for “location aware” computing. With built in 3G/HSPA capabilities, it will also utilize Windows 7’s mobile broadband enhancements. The Nokia Booklet 3G + Windows 7 is an exciting combination!

The Nokia Booklet 3G brings Nokia’s extensive experience to the PC for a fresh perspective. With the Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia wants you to be able to leave your cables and chargers at home – just like with a mobile phone. With up to 12 hours of battery life, the Nokia Booklet 3G is perfect for all-day mobility. Nokia as adopted its overall “design DNA” with the design of its first laptop. The Nokia Booklet 3G features a premium design with a chassis made from a single piece of machined aluminum. The aluminum chassis is strong and robust. It requires no fan (that’s right – no fan) making for one quiet PC. The HD display for the Nokia Booklet 3G is glass covered for a crisp and clear view of the screen. Nokia wanted to keep the design clean and uncluttered so the Nokia Booklet 3G includes a single HDMI port, 3 USB ports and a single headphone jack that doubles also for a microphone.

The performance is equally as impressive as its design. The Nokia Booklet 3G is designed to go from being shutdown to checking email or browsing the web in around a minute.

For a better look at the Nokia Booklet 3G, I suggest checking out this really slick video here. A for the full spec line-up, click here.

I look forward to checking out the Nokia Booklet 3G in the very near future. Stay tuned for more information (it will be available in a number of markets the 4th quarter 2009) and pricing.