The need to migrate from Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 2000 to
Windows 7 in a tight time frame will create an extra budgetary and
resource burden on companies from 2011 to 2012, according to
Gartner. During this period, demand for highly qualified Windows 7
migration IT personnel will exceed supply, leading to higher
service rates.
Gartner analysts said most organizations will need to find extra
funds or redirect budgets away from other projects to complete the
Windows migration on time.
“Corporate IT departments typically prefer to migrate PC
operating systems (OSs) via hardware attrition, which means
bringing in the new OS as they replace hardware through a normal
refresh cycle,” said Charles Smulders, managing vice
president at Gartner. “Microsoft will support Windows XP for
four more years. With most migrations not starting until the fourth
quarter of 2010 at the earliest, and PC hardware replacement cycles
typically running at four to five years, most organizations will
not be able to migrate to Windows 7 through usual planned hardware
refresh before support for Windows XP ends.”
Faced with this need to accelerate migration in 2011 and 2012,
organizations have three options:
Accelerate PC replacement plans
Buying new PCs with the OS upgrade ensures that machines have a
full set of compatible drivers and a basic input/output system
(BIOS). This course of action also reduces the number of times the
machine is touched during its life and ensures that it will have a
reasonably long operational life with the new OS over which to
amortize the costs of the migration.
Assuming a 10,000 PC environment, where all PCs are replaced,
Gartner estimates that the migration cost per PC will be between
USD1,205 and USD1,999, depending on how well-managed the
environment is. While the overall cost to migrate is lower than
other scenarios, the down side is that the capital costs account
for about 60 percent of the total replacement cost, so the capital
budget will be larger than in the upgrade case.
Upgrade installed PCs
Using existing PCs will reduce the capital costs of migration, but
will not reduce the labor costs of migration. Assuming the same
setup as above — a 10,000 PC environment, where all PCs are
upgraded — the migration cost per PC will be between USD1,274
and USD2,069, depending on how well-managed the PC environment is.
This assumes that 25 percent of the machines will need a hardware
upgrade to run the OS.
While the capital costs are reduced in this case, upgrading an
installed PC simply postpones the inevitable replacement for two to
three years. Users will need to be migrated twice, rather than
once, during a four-year period.
Evaluate partial migration
For task workers, such as data-entry roles (these account for about
15 percent of the population in a typical organization), migrating
from a PC to a hosted virtual desktop (HVD) environment is an
alternative to PC migration. It would potentially speed up
deployment, because it is one image deployed centrally. However, an
HVD does not solve the budget issues, because of the incremental
cost of the data center and network infrastructure needed to run an
HVD. Also, it does not solve the IT support staff issue, since they
will be involved in the HVD rollout.
The cost of labor
"Whether replacing or upgrading PCs, it is clear that Windows 7
migration will have a noticeable impact on organizations' IT
budgets," said Steve Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner.
"Based on an accelerated upgrade, we expect that the proportion of
the budget spent on PCs will need to increase between 20 percent as
a best-case scenario and 60 percent at worst in 2011 and 2012.
Assuming that PCs account for 15 percent of a typical IT budget,
this means that this percentage will increase to 18 percent (best
case) and 24 percent (worst case) which could have a profound
effect on IT spending and on funding for associated projects during
both those years."
Gartner expects the cost of IT labor to increase during 2011 and
2012 as demand for Windows 7 migration services spikes. These cost
hikes are likely to continue in 2013, as organizations recognize
that they are behind in their migrations.
“We estimate that large and midsize organizations worldwide
will migrate approximately 250 million PCs to Windows 7, during the
migration timeline, so it makes sense for organizations that plan
to leverage external services to line up service providers
early,” Smulders said. “Begin talks with suppliers now
about putting in place contracts that can deliver flexible levels
of resources at a fixed rate over the migration period.”