Windows 7 should fare better than Vista on corporate PCs

Corporate PCs are three times more likely to be equipped to run Windows 7 than had been capable of running Windows Vista when the often-maligned OS was released.

Or at least that is what Softchoice, an IT management company, is reporting about the 450,000 corporate PCs it manages.

According to Softchoice, 88 percent of the corporate PCs it has under management meet the minimum system requirements of Windows 7. Of those not yet equipped to run Windows 7, the majority would simply require more RAM and/or bigger hard disks. To run Windows 7, only 1 percent of PCs would require replacement.

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If you look at the optimum configuration for Windows 7 rather than the minimum configuration, 65 percent of Softchoice-managed PCs are Windows 7-ready, and 5 percent would need outright replacement, according to Softchoice. This compares very favorably with the state of Windows PCs when Windows Vista was introduced. At that time, 16 percent of Softchoice’s managed PCs would have required replacement to run Windows Vista.

From a hardware standpoint, these numbers bode well for Windows 7 uptake. And my colleague Randall C. Kennedy has also noted that, thanks to “Windows 7’s respect for The Great Moore’s Law Compensator,” Windows software may no longer outpace hardware, as Windows 7 has shown signs of not merely eating up all available computing resources, as has been the case with earlier versions.

Of course, only time will tell, but given the improved features of Windows 7 and the fact that most of the fleet is still running Windows XP and even older systems, it’s likely that Windows 7 will have a much more of a presence in corporations than Windows Vista did.

This story, “Why Windows 7 should do better than Vista in corporations,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in Windows at InfoWorld.com.