Windows 7 Adoption Picks Up – At Home, At Work, And on Tablets
The verdict is in on Windows 7…and it’s all good news for Microsoft. After taking a beating when it released the buggy Microsoft Vista, the software giant has made giant strides one year after 7′s release.
Web analytics firm NetApplications says that Windows 7 installations have (slightly) eclipsed Windows Vista. Since we can assume that Vista will only be installed by people who’ve been living in caves for the past year, this trend will undoubtedly continue. Corporate adoption is on the rise, too: a major IT metrics firm recently found that 31 percent of companies surveyed have budgeted to migrate their users to Windows 7.
That doesn’t mean Microsoft’s work is done, however. If there’s one arena in which the Redmond behemoth has to make inroads, it’s tablet computing. It’s already lost substantial ground to Apple (iPhone) and Google (Android) in the cell phone market. The announced feature set for Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s slated new mobile platform, has earned derision from commentators for being several years behind the times.
That leaves tablets as a natural platform the revamped Windows. The success of the iPad is sparking a revolution in this space. It’s pushed down the price of eBook readers like the Nook and the Kindle, and spurred a series of imitators running Google’s Android OS. Windows 7, which sports a new slate of features specifically for tablets, is well poised to win a chunk of this market. Indeed, many current tablet users report that Windows 7 runs like a dream on their existing hardware. Vendors such as Archos have jumped the gun, and already released tablets preloaded with 7.
Microsoft’s killed its ambitious foray into the tablet space, Courier, back in April. But recently, Steve Ballmer swore that the company was going to do what it does best: get its software on as many hardware platforms as possible. The company is working with Intel and other hardware vendors to release a series of branded tablets tuned for the latest release of Windows.
Microsoft engineers are committing that the first generation of Windows tablets will support a “personal cloud” – a set of networked information (documents, email, music, etc.) that is accessible across a range of computing devices, and tied together through your Windows Live account. The services are already there: Messenger, Hotmail, SkyDrive. If Microsoft can couple this with a compelling Windows 7-based interface and 3G connectivity, it stands a chance of scoring a piece of the tablet market before Apple and Google divide it between themselves.
Source: Windows7update.com
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