Last year BMW opted to be one of the “guinea pigs” of the new Windows Operating System – what we all now have come to know (and most love) – Windows 7. However, when they began the pilot, they didn’t realise their users would liken to it as much as they did. At first, there was kickback from those internal saying it was a bit childish and was more “playful” than useful however after using it more and more, they have found it “extremely friendly”, “quick”, and that it “just works”.
In their initial pilot BMW hoped to have over 500 implementations of Windows 7 in their environment by the end of this year, and they’ve well exceeded that. So much so, they’re on target to having hopefully 5,000 deployed workstations by October 2010 and will be going full steam ahead with the remainder of the 85,000 by 2011.
Not only do the users now more thoroughly enjoy the experience but they’re finding their battery life lasts 20% longer than the previous OS and better than ever, the new technology – DirectAccess – is giving them back 5 minutes per user per day in no longer having to make VPN connections back to HQ. That coupled with quicker network connectivity, means less burden on the IT staff and, well another reason why Windows 7 is as successful as it is.
Credit: CIO Magazine
