Microsoft’s new operating system has some great features and got enthusiastic market response at launch. But can it win big on the enterprise front?
By Pupul Dutta
If one were to look at the initial response, Windows 8 seems to have done pretty well compared to its predecessor, Windows 7. According to Microsoft figures, Windows 8 sold 40 million licenses in a month against the 60 million garnered by Win7 in the first two months of its launch. However, analysts and critics are yet to term the new touch-friendly operating system from the software giant as a “success.”
For one, “fresh sales” of the OS are still low and only those enterprises are embracing it that have some kind of ongoing purchase agreement with Microsoft. Says Venu Reddy, Director, IDC India, “According to our estimates, companies with software assurance licenses are more forthcoming in the adoption of Windows 8 as compared to the ones that have to buy fresh licenses on a per-PC cost.”
To its credit, Windows 8 has some wow features that are easy to use and convenient for users. The OS provides apps such as mail, messaging, people, calendar, news, finance, music, photos, video, Bing search, etc. The software major has put in account synchronization options that simplify the users’ online life. For example, the people app can import contact details from Skype, Hotmail, Outlook, Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
According to Amrish Goyal, Director – Windows Business Group, Microsoft India, “Windows 8 has been re-imagined in terms of capability and is built upon all the features of Windows 7. So from a commercial customer perspective, the benefits will be around the productivity and manageability aspects. From a BYOD perspective, one needs to understand that people want to carry their own cool devices to their workplaces. Windows 8 addresses both ends of the spectrum. At the launch Microsoft made close to 250 devices available on Windows 8, out of which 23 were completely new PCs, new form factors and new models for the India market.”
For Microsoft, the number of Windows 8-enabled devices will only grow as OEMs start launching their new versions of products. “We have brought about a lot of changes in the latest version of the OS, some of them being BYOD and mobility. With Windows 8, an organization can create a complete corporate image and put it on to a USB stick which can be carried around and plugged into a desktop or laptop from office or home. The good thing is that when the system boots, what comes up is the Windows 8 OS and all of the group policies that the enterprise would have wanted to have on that device. Hence, in situations like BYOD, the employees can work at ease,” says Goyal.
Another good thing about Windows 8 is that at no point does the OS allow the user to interact with local hard disk or hardware itself, making it more secure and safe. Among the security measures Microsoft has taken in the new OS are the BitLocker and AppLocker encryption and administration mechanisms that help keep enterprise data safe from malware attacks, in addition to allowing IT administrators to specify the apps that can be run on employees’ systems.
Another technology Microsoft believes will make computing safer is the UEFI (Unified Extensible Framework Interface) specification. A community effort by many companies (including Intel, AMD, Apple, IBM and Microsoft, among others), UEFI details an interface that helps hand off control of the system for the pre-boot environment to an operating system, such as Windows or Linux. “This is where Windows 8 in conjunction with the hardware checks if there are any changes made at the time of boot. Windows 8 checks for these malware, so if there is any change made, the OS will not boot up,” says Goyal.
With Windows 8, apparently, Microsoft has also sought to simplify the licensing structure. Compared to the six editions of Windows 7, the new OS comes with just four editions—Consumer, Professional, Enterprise and RT (for devices that run on x86 architecture). But whether this new structure will result in more sales is something that remains to be seen.
The enterprise experience
Despite an impressive list of features and big launch numbers, the enterprise adoption journey of Windows 8 will not be an easy one. The reasons for this vary from incremental cost and compatibility issues to training and user acceptance.
Some of the enterprise users are skeptical whether it would be justified to, say, upgrade the RAM of existing systems to the minimum 2GB that the new OS needs to have in order to run smoothly.
“One of the realities with Windows 8 or any other operating system release is that enterprises will not jump on it, because there is a cost associated with it. A few of these organizations may already have an enterprise contract, which covers the license fee for updates; however, there would still be an associated time and material cost,” says Reddy of IDC.
Essar, a multinational conglomerate with presence in sectors like steel, energy, power, communications, shipping ports, logistics and construction, has upgraded some of its computing devices to Windows 8. But, on the whole, it is still checking the compatibility of the OS with other software the group uses and weighing how cost-effective and efficient it would prove to be.
“Our journey for Windows 8 began when we started testing for the OS much before the launch. We have tested 10-15 apps that we are presently using in our environment. So far, we have not faced any issue. However, we have not rolled it out for all users and only about 50-75 users are using Windows 8 till date,” says Jayantha Prabhu, Chief Technology Officer at Essar Group.
Essar plans to use Windows 8 on a Citrix platform. However, this may take some time as Citrix has to come out with comprehensive support for Windows 8 and Windows RT to enable users. It is expected that all of Citrix’s products, including a new set of virtualization and mobility tools, will be compatible with the new Windows OS.
Prabhu says that the company will be able to complete the roll-out of the new OS in the next two quarters. “Windows 8 usage pattern and visual [feel] is absolutely different from previous ones and hence training the people and making them accustomed to it would take some time,” he says. On the BYOD front, the company has been able to meet its requirements with Windows 8.
Talking about the issues faced by the company so far, he says, “We are presently facing the issue of integration of the existing antivirus client version for Windows 8 with the present server edition. We will need to migrate the server version to the latest version to support the endpoint antivirus client for Windows 8 machines. The existing machines are being updated from an additional antivirus server of the newer version that has been created for users testing the OS.”
Express Computer spoke to Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) and Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) to get their views on incremental costs. Given that both these airports had software assurance agreement with Microsoft, they did not have to bear any additional expenditure.
Francis Rajan, Chief Information Officer at BIAL, said that the company did not invest in anything except for the cost to increase RAM in some PCs.
According to Davesh Shukla, Vice President and CIO – Information Technology, DIAL, “We were able to smoothly migrate to Windows 8 and have also created an app for Delhi airport on the OS’s platform.”
However, companies that do not have software assurance agreements or that have relatively older PCs in use will need to fork out additional money to be able to use the new OS.
The additional expense issue is something that will keep many enterprises away from Windows 8, especially when one considers that several of them have either recently upgraded from XP to Windows 7 or are in the process of doing so. Therefore, another OS refresh may not be what they will look at in the near future.
