I was reading an article on Windows “Blue” today, and there was an interesting side note to it. Positive changes to the way Microsoft develops and releases operating systems may be a reality starting with Windows 8 (or least that opportunity exists). From the information that is available now, it seems that this upgrade/add-on to Windows 8 will incorporate some significant modifications to that operating system. One analyst feels that Microsoft may be leaning toward changing their operating system development cycle by increasing the changes and release schedule. The benefit, he says, is that this would allow organizations to adapt more easily to changes in their environment and lessen the impact of OS migration initiatives. He may have a point there.

While Vista was a major OS change there were too many issues with it, which hindered its adoption in the enterprise. One of the major reasons was application compatibility, as the jump to that OS wouldn’t have been as straightforward as people would have liked. The end result was that organizations continued to rely on Windows XP for much longer than Microsoft had hoped. By implementing more gradual changes to the OS, it could ease the compatibility issues that application vendors have had to deal with in the past. For IT folks, as long as your application portfolio is relatively current, you would hopefully be in a position to handle OS changes much more easily. Keep your fingers crossed.

Original blog post on: http://futurestateit.com/2013/05/22/is-change-on-the-way/