About this time last year (March 2016) Gartner published the results of their survey into Windows 10 migration plans in the business sector. Their key finding was that companies expected to be able to complete their migration in “only 23 months.”
23 months now looks like an age. Businesses need a much quicker deployment to maintain security and business advantage.
Enter 1E’s Windows Servicing Suite. Built on 20 years’ experience with over 350 organizations migrating Windows, 1E has built a unique solution for automating the deployment of Windows 10. It includes the ability for end users to schedule their update at a time that suits them (preventing interruption to their work), intelligent refresh, replacement or retirement of applications and zero-touch automation across the whole process (allowing thousands of computers to be updated per day and freeing IT staff to work on higher-value projects). It also recognizes that a variety of update methods will be needed – in-place upgrade will work for many while clean installs will be better for others. It automates the regular maintenance tasks IT perform – system reinstalls to clean up a corrupted machine, migrating to new hardware as a computer comes to its end of life and provisioning computers for new hires.
Back when Windows 10 was first launched, 23 months didn’t look too bad. Compared to the time companies took to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7, two years looked pretty speedy. The move to Windows 7 took a lot longer due to many factors including fears for application compatibility (a bane of all previous migrations that still wasn’t completely solved with Windows 7), concerns about the impact of change on the business and, especially, the lack of a pressing event forcing an update. Many of these impediments were resolved for Windows 10.
Nonetheless, 23 months is still 23 months. There are few IT leaders that would take a project for approval that would take 2 years to deliver. Executives are looking for projects that pay back in months not years.
Two years is also a long time in the IT world. Think of all the security patches for Windows and your applications you must deal with in that time. For Windows 10, that means four major Feature Updates and 24 Quality Updates (that include critical security updates). At the same time, you’ll be getting three Configuration Manager updates which are required to deploy those new releases of Windows 10. And you can’t choose to pick one release of Windows 10 and keep it for a few years as Microsoft are only supporting the current and previous release at any time. That means if your IT desk is supporting many versions of Windows, you’ll be falling behind on security patches, other projects will be getting delayed, and end users will be getting frustrated waiting for a modern desktop OS.
1E’s Windows Servicing Suite slashes this migration time down from years to weeks.
Find out more about Windows Servicing Suite at 1e.com/Windows10
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