We have tested out Windows 7 in our corporate office and related entities, in
addition to our education operations. NIIT has a policy of hardware refresh
every 3-5 years and the last refresh was carried out in October 2004. This is
partly the reason why we skipped Vista and are going to upgrade directly to
Windows 7 from XP. We also realized that Vista demands very high resources like
RAM etc. and the technical experience wasn't too good for us. We expected
Windows 7 to be even more demanding but we are pleasantly surprised that we are
able to use the existing laptops or desktops as well. We have even dug out
notebooks that were locked up and are running Windows 7 to use the notebooks
temporarily or as test PCs. For instance, a 512 MB RAM machine runs the OS quite
well. We have carried out pilots for around 100 machines across departments
Taking forward the commitment of helping enterOn NIIT's education front, we
have around 6000 PCs where security and manageability are the biggest concerns.
The Windows Firewall feature of Windows 7 helps prevent malware downloads
accidentally by students. In terms of manageability, the ability of Windows 7 to
allow installs using images is very helpful since it reduces time and complexity
for installations. A unique requirement of our education operations is the fact
that we have to teach software which may not run on the latest operating
systems. This challenge is further magnified when something like Oracle, or
Tally needs to taught. We are happy that Windows 7 is compatible with third
party offerings like these.
Virtualization-readiness of Windows 7 is a plus point for us. We currently
use an nComputing solution that allows us to share computing power. Using VDI
more effectively for our education training purposes is on our road-map and we
will be embracing the virtualization capabilities of Windows 7 for this
Next -
Cost advantage propositions for enterprises with Windows 7