3 Reasons Enterprises Should/Shouldn't Upgrade To Windows 8

Bangalore,India: “Windows 8 will help you do everything, and make it a lot of fun to do nothing”, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the official launch

event of Windows 8. But will it help your business to do everything?According to Gartner, 90% of large organizations will not adopt Windows 8 in a broad

fashion . Here are some of the major pros and cons Windows 8 brings to the workplace:









The Pros









1) Unified experience across devices









Microsoft claims that Windows 8 will offer a “no-compromise” experience on tablets, with tablets running Windows 8 pro offering the same functionality

offering the same features as a PC version. With the variety of convertible tablet/pc hybrids shown at the launch, this will definitely improve

productivity on-the-go. With Microsoft's Skydrive offering all the cloud storage needed, employees using tablets like the Surface will have an easy time

getting adjusted to using Office 2013 on convertible PCs when away from the office.Also, once Windows 8 Phone devices are released, they will also offer

security protocols that can coordinate with corporate Windows policies, offering more options to do work on the go.









2) Improved Security Protocols









The use of UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) Secure Boot is a huge improvement over the old BIOS, as it only allows booting of operating systems

components that have been digitally signed by the software vendor. This effectively eliminate malicious rootkits from being active, as they are usually

started during the boot-up process, before any anti-malware processes have begun. Enterprises will find it crucial to enable this feature to protect their

corporate data effectively. Along with Bitlocker (disk encryption solution) and a more robust Windows Defender, Windows 8 will also offer “Windows To Go”,

a fully managed corporate Windows 8 image that can be booted off a USB drive on any x64 system. This will be a step in the right direction for businesses

concerned by the emerging BYOD trends, offering a secured corporate environment that will automatically VPN into your enterprise network.









3) Runs On Existing Architecture









IT managers will not have to worry about investing in expensive hardware to use Windows 8, as it has been made to run on a wide range of architectures.

According to Steven Sinofsky(President,Windows & Windows Live), “In building Windows 8 we set out to significantly reduce the overall runtime memory

requirements of the core system”(MSDN Blog). He added

that Windows 8 was designed to work on systems meeting requirements of Windows 7, and even older systems should be able to run it smoothly. Also, due to

the efficient memory usage, power consumption in Windows 8 is much lesser than previous versions, Microsoft claims.









The Cons









1) Merging the Personal with the Professional









While Ballmer claims Windows 8 is “great for work and play”, that may not be a good thing for most businesses. Considering that the new “Windows 8-style”

start screen is designed with casual users in mind, live tiles may prove counterproductive for corporate work, distracting workers to use apps and other

social media platforms. While Microsoft claims that User Account Control(UAC) can prevent installation of unauthorized apps, there may be ways to get

around it that employees may use to install apps without accessing the Windows Store, and this will prove to be very detrimental in an office environment.









2) User-friendly on a desktop PC?









Let's face the fact. Most businesses are not going to move to touch-based systems anytime soon. And Windows 8 will not force that change either. Windows 8

was designed with touch clearly in mind, and hence it performs awkwardly on a traditional desktop. Using your mouse to “slide” apps around and having to

switch between desktop and “metro” screens constantly will be a gigantic pain point for corporate work. There will also be costs incurred training

employees to find their way around Windows 8, which many businesses will feel would not be worth the investment.









3) Windows RT devices not enterprise-ready









One of the major weapons Microsoft is using to pushing to popularize Windows 8 is its Surface tablet. However, the flavor of Surface released on October

26th,2012, runs the Windows RT OS, which only offers a subset of services offered by Windows 8 Pro. What's so bad, you ask? Well, it can't run legacy apps.

This means enterprise users will be restricted to only using metro-style apps on the tablet, which has an abysmal selection of enterprise productivity apps

at the moment. Although a customized Office suite will be available on the RT tablets, users will have a poor selection of 3rd party apps to install.

However, Microsoft is set to release the Surface version running the Windows 8 Pro OS in January 2013, that should allow for more flexible usage.