According to a new ITIC/Sunbelt Software survey of more than 1,600 companies worldwide, nearly 60 percent will deploy Windows 7 in the near term. Another 30 percent said they will transition to the new Microsoft operating system within the first six months. And 11 percent of the respondents plan to wait for the first service pack to ship.

Windows 7 looks to be in for a warm welcome from enterprises, with 80 percent rating the new operating system as "excellent" or "very good." Specifically, 44 percent of respondents rated the Windows 7 beta and early releases "excellent," while 36 percent called it "very good." Fewer than two percent of the survey respondents rated Windows 7 quality as "poor" or "completely unsatisfactory."

Proactive Compatibility Measures

The reviews of Windows 7 are similar to the laudatory comments that greeted Windows XP when it first shipped in October 2001, noted Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC.

"Many of the survey respondents somewhat ruefully opined that Windows 7 is what 'Vista should have been' or that it is 'Vista SP3,'" DiDio explained. "That said, Microsoft needed to convince customers disappointed and dismayed by Vista's incompatibility issues that it could deliver a robust, full-featured desktop OS that has a very high degree of backward compatibility. Windows 7 does exactly that."

At the same time, she said, Microsoft recognizes that no operating system will deliver 100 percent compatibility. Rather, Microsoft is striving for better than 90 percent out-of-the-box compatibility -- and it hasn't left compatibility to chance. The company has adopted a series of initiatives that aim to deliver application compatibility and an easier migration experience.

"Microsoft has beefed up its compatibility tools and Web sites, and it will launch its Applications Compatibility Center later this week and will showcase compatibility with 15,000 products immediately," DiDio said. "By mid-2010, Microsoft executives anticipate that the site will list 30,000 compatible products."

Making the Right Moves

Industry watchers have noticed Microsoft's effort to offer online deployment tools and toolkits over the past couple of years. DiDio pointed to initiatives like the Application Compatibility Toolkit, which helps companies determine whether their applications and drivers will work with Windows 7.

Microsoft is also offering a series of online and optional premium compatibility planning and evaluation services and has even launched an Ecosystem Readiness Program to offer technical training workshops to OEM hardware vendors and independent software vendors around the world.

As DiDio sees it, Microsoft has made all the right moves. Of course, she said, the real proof will come over the next six months as corporations and consumers deploy Windows 7 in production networks.

"It will be incumbent on Microsoft to respond in a forthright, timely and efficient manner to any technical issues that arise during the first wave of user deployments," DiDio said. "As Microsoft knows only too well from its Vista experience, it will not get a second chance to make a good first impression."