It’s been a very exciting several of months for us here at Microsoft, and for many of our customers and partners, sharing the excitement of Windows 7. Since its release to manufacturing in July, through this week at TechEd Europe, we’ve had a lot of Windows 7 and MDOP activities, including countless in-person launch events held around the world. We’ve also had an estimated one in two IT Professionals worldwide try Windows 7, we’ve seen hundreds of community led events, and millions of you have visited us on the Springboard Series on TechNet to get information, tools and guidance for migrating to Windows 7.

I have personally visited 12 countries in the last 2 months and had the chance to speak with many customers and partners to learn about your experiences with Windows 7. Several themes are consistent. You tell me your users are incredibly excited about the performance and productivity improvements of Windows 7 and your IT organizations are seeing great value in the enhanced security and management. I am hearing how you can both pull cost out of your organization and provide greater productivity to your users. It is very encouraging to hear this positive impact you’re seeing with Windows 7 in your organization.

You heard from some of our customers during the TechEd keynote, and we thought you might like to hear the experiences of several other customers that we have worked with and how they realized and quantified significant cost savings. We have also included some useful guidance below to help you with your deployment planning

• International energy company Statoil is deploying Windows 7 along with Windows Server 2008 R2 to provide their travelling employees with seamless access, improve information access in their branch offices, and further enhance their IT security. By using DirectAccess, BranchCache, and BitLocker, Statoil is able to provide their users with mobile and remote access as well as the satisfaction that their data is protected. Check out this Q&A with Statoil for more on their Windows 7 deployment.
• F. Hoffmann-La Roche, a Switzerland-based healthcare company, is working towards their goal of deploying Windows 7 to 5,000 of their PCs to take advantage of BitLocker’s ability to protect data stored on hard drives as well as removable USB sticks. Roche is working closely with Microsoft Services to plan and deploy their new Active Directory infrastructure as well as their Group Policy management rollout.
• The Ministry of Defense in the Netherlands is working to upgrade 50,000 of their PCs to Windows 7 through 2010. By starting their application compatibility testing early – on Windows Vista last year – they were able to get a jump start on their Windows 7 deployment plans and begin their pilot of 200 users, who have expressed excitement over the enhanced user interface and their ease of data access wherever they are.

You can hear from more customers during our live monthly Webcasts on the Windows Enterprise website. For more information specifically on cost savings early Windows 7 adopters have experienced, visit the following total cost of ownership studies:

• Getronics is seeing direct IT labor savings of $111 per PC per year
• Baker Tilly is reducing their IT labor costs by $191 per PC per year
• City of Miami is reducing their IT labor costs by $148 per PC per year

So how can we help your organization realize the benefits of Windows 7? Microsoft has an extensive set of partners that are trained and ready to help you with your deployment planning and migration to Windows 7 - since January this year we have trained more than 110K partner individuals on Windows 7 worldwide. These partners can help you assess your readiness for a Windows 7 migration, they are able to help you develop a deployment plan and can provide services to assist you in the deployment, migration and ongoing management and support of your environment.

Additionally, Microsoft Services has consultants and support professionals in 82 countries to help you out. They offer specialized services based on best practices developed in coordination with product groups and early adopter customers to help you test your applications and jumpstart your deployment, including:

• Desktop Planning and Deployment services, which provide a framework for planning and deployment of Windows 7 operating system and desktop applications. It includes planning and architecture design, proof of concept, and pilot deployment that determines the optimal way to deploy Windows 7 and Microsoft Office based on customer business requirements and organizational readiness.
• Microsoft Services Desktop Application Compatibility offering provides an end-to-end application compatibility solution to ensure that business applications and data can be used more effectively in the new desktop environment with Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8 and the latest version of Microsoft Office.
• Desktop Image Engineering creates a standardized corporate desktop image that takes into account hardware, security, performance and localization requirements, in addition to applications, deployment and management. Consultants also give your team guidance on future maintenance and change management.
• Desktop Deployment Jumpstart helps you understand the costs of developing an enterprise-capable desktop, including a current state assessment, gathering requirements, and a gap analysis against a Microsoft referent deployment solution architecture.

What are YOUR next steps? Here’s some deployment planning guidance which might help you:

• If your organization is still running Windows 2000, we recommend that you begin your application testing on Windows 7 and begin your deployment planning.
  • If you’ve already started a migration to Windows Vista, continue that deployment, as it will help you get ready for Windows 7 when the time is right for you.
• If your organization is on Windows XP, we recommend that you also begin your application compatibility testing on Windows 7 and begin your deployment planning.
  • If you’ve already started a migration to Windows Vista, continue that deployment, as it will help you get ready for Windows 7 when the time is right for you.
  • If you’re in the early stages of planning a Windows Vista deployment, we recommend that you test your applications and infrastructure on Windows 7 and our advice is to change to Windows 7.
• If you have just deployed Windows Vista, we recommend that you begin evaluating Windows 7, and consider Windows 7 as you refresh your hardware or deploy it to the users who’d benefit the most from its features.
• Don’t have access to Windows 7 Enterprise edition? If you’re an IT professional and don’t already have access to Windows 7 Enterprise edition, you can download the 90 day evaluation SKU here. This will allow you to begin testing the final released code with your hardware and application portfolio.
• Already running Windows 7? Tell us what you think! You can join the conversation at www.talkingaboutwindows.com.

We have been working hard on Network Administrator 3.

It was just released – You can download it from here:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/NetworkAdministrator.exe

Network Administrator allows you to make tweaks and changes to computers across your network, and in version 3 we have an extensive plugin system that allows us to add functionality quite quickly.

One of the requests we keep getting is a plugin to change power management settings. It turns out that this is actually much harder than it seems. There are different ways in each version of windows – and some of them don’t even work all the time.

We worked around the clock to work around all of the quirks and issues, and finally built a plugin that allows you to change these settings on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, and Windows 7.

These settings are not even available with group policy, or any specific registry settings – so this is a huge time saver.

The settings for the plugin are packed with power management options:

In a few clicks you can change the power management options for multiple computers across your network.

Best of all, Network Administrator is a free tool to use on up to 3 computers at a time.

Give it a spin and let us know what you think.

Need to use Network Administrator 3.0 on more than 3 computers? Get an unlimited copy for only $199 Click here to purchase

Hi, I’m Gavriella; welcome to the new Windows for your Business Blog.

Let me introduce myself: I’m a member of the Windows Product Management team and have been at Microsoft for 13 years. For the last two and a half, I’ve been focused on product management for MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack). In my new role as Senior Director, I’m leading Product Management for Windows Client, including the Windows OS, the MDOP products, and the client virtualization strategy for our commercial customers. For us that means all customers from small businesses through large enterprises. My team and I are focused on helping optimize the desktop experience for our business customers - we focus on enabling end-user productivity and reducing desktop administration overhead.

Moving forward, the Windows for Your Business Blog will focus on Windows for our commercial customers, and today I want to specifically talk about what we’re doing to help those customers with their deployments and reducing IT costs.

With the current state of the economy, I understand that many companies are scrutinizing IT budgets and doing some “belt-tightening.” The customers I have spoken to most recently are also looking for technology that will lead to greater efficiency and cost savings to help them shift costs out of the organization, as well as align with business needs. I think customers are recognizing that this economic downturn is not a short term penny-pinching exercise. Instead, we’re all looking for strategies to weather this economic storm. In order to do this, we will need to make fundamental changes that reduce operating margins for the long term.

I also know that the reality of customers’ deployment projects will typically take them 12-18 months of planning and testing before operating system deployments can begin. Application testing and migration readiness typically takes a significant portion of this time. It also takes time for companies to standardize hardware, certify operating system images, select deployment tools and methods, as well as train end-users and IT for the new operating system.

With this demand on time, plus the strains from today’s economy, our customers are under a lot of pressure.

As a first step, we recommend our customers assess their environment to be in a better position to decide what OS they need to deploy:

1. Take an inventory of how many applications you manage in your current enterprise environment – here is guidance that can help.

2. Talk to your application vendors to find out how long they intend to provide support for their application running in Windows XP and when they plan to support their application running in Windows 7.

3. This will help you assess the maximum length of time that you have to move from Windows XP to Windows 7.

• Then you should assess the level of application compatibility that your applications have with Windows 7 (we recommend you test your applications against Windows Vista as there will be a high degree of compatibility between Windows 7 and Windows Vista) – this will help you assess how many of your applications will need to be upgraded, remediated or replaced in order to work in your new operating environment.
• If you test your applications against the Windows 7 Beta, we recommend that for the mainstream OS deployment, you later test applications against the RTM (Release-to-Manufacturing) release.
• Here is guidance and documentation on performing your application compatibility testing: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc507853.aspx.

4. Then you should assess the hardware compatibility in your environment (and what it will be in the 12-18 months that it might take for you to complete the deployment of the new OS).

• Here is guidance and documentation on performing your hardware assessment: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators/hardwareassessment/wv/default.mspx.

5. Additionally, here are other useful steps to consider as you are assessing for OS deployment: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749165.aspx.

Having this information about your environment will help you identify any blocking issues that you need to address in your OS migration and what your timelines might look like in reality.

We recommend you use what you are running today to make the right decision for your business.

• If you are running Windows 2000 in your environment: Migrate your Windows 2000 PCs to Windows Vista as soon as possible. Extended support for Windows 2000 ends Q2 2010, and as an commerical customer, you may soon find your business’s critical applications are unsupported.
• If you are in the process of planning or deploying Windows Vista: Continue your Windows Vista SP1 deployment. If you’re really in the early stages or just starting on Windows Vista, plan to test and deploy Windows Vista SP2 (on target to RTM Q2 2009). Moving onto Windows Vista now will allow for an easier transition to Windows 7 in the future due to the high degree of compatibility.
• If you are on Windows XP now and are undecided about which OS to move to: Make sure you taken into consideration the risk of skipping Windows Vista, which I am discussing below. And know that deploying Windows Vista now will make the future transition to Windows 7 easier.
• If you are on Windows XP now and are waiting for Windows 7: Make sure you take into consideration the risks of skipping Windows Vista, and plan on starting an early evaluation of Windows 7 for your company using the beta that’s available now. Testing and remediating applications on Windows Vista will ease your Windows 7 deployment due to the high degree of compatibility.

We know some of our customers are considering waiting for Windows 7 instead of deploying Windows Vista today. We want these customers to understand the following considerations, so they are not surprised later on:

• You may find your company in situations where applications are no longer supported on Windows XP and not yet supported on Windows 7.
• You will want to take time to evaluate Windows 7 just as you evaluate any new operating system for your environment prior to deployment (see deployment realities above). As Windows 7 is planned to be released in about 3 years after Windows Vista, the total period that many customers will likely be waiting prior to deploying Windows 7 in their environment will likely be in the range of 5 years after Windows Vista release.

Regardless of which OS you plan to deploy or are running today, consider deploying the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) which is part of the Windows Optimized Desktop, so that you can implement cost saving best practices. The Windows Optimized Desktop is the combination of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and the Windows OS (Windows Vista Enterprise or Windows 7 Enterprise). MDOP offers Software Assurance customers advanced tools to provide immediate ROI through software asset management, help desk management, application management and group policy management.

We expect deployment and application migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 to be similar in effort to going from Windows XP to Windows Vista. As I mentioned above, there is a great deal of compatibility between both Windows Vista and Windows 7, as we are not introducing any major architectural changes. Our customers who focus efforts in getting their applications to work on Windows Vista will ease future migration to Windows 7 and help accelerate their Windows 7 deployment.

Customers who are in the process of deploying Windows Vista or who are considering a deployment to Windows Vista will find their investment in the deployment not only pays off in the value they’ll receive today, but will also put them in a much better place to take advantage of the benefits of Windows 7 moving forward.

We hope this guidance will help you, our business customers, make informed decisions on your Windows deployment plans going forward.

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