Two recent Forrester Research reports indicate early adopters of the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system are "very satisfied" with Microsoft's latest offering, though most consumers are still happy with Windows XP.
The OS properly saturated the market towards the end of 2009, when most U.S. consumers knew about the OS. Forrester also learned people who began using Windows 7 during Q4 2009 were satisfied with the OS and their PCs.
"In short, Windows 7 is a thinner client program than was Windows Vista, meaning that it works well on older hardware configurations," according to the Forrester Blog. "In the past, OSes were designed with Moore's Law as an underlying assumption -- that is, that newer PC hardware would be significantly faster and powerful than the previous generation's hardware."
There is already interest in the OS coming after Windows 7, but Microsoft remains dedicated in its efforts to convince PC users to jump to Windows 7. It will be interesting to see how many consumers Microsoft is able to switch over to Windows 7 during 2010, as consumer knowledge of the OS reaches even higher levels.
I've used Windows 7 while conducting research for articles, but still run WinXP on all of my Windows-based desktops and netbooks. Although I appreciate that Microsoft has moved past the disaster known as Windows Vista, I still don't have a real need to upgrade to Windows 7 quite yet. Until there is an absolute need for me to purchase the upgrade, Windows XP works well for everything I do.
Dell, HP, and other manufacturers already offer Windows 7 as the main option on new notebooks and PC desktops -- helping to drive adoption even higher.
