Chief information officer proposal for operating system upgrade evaluation

¶ … CEO FOR or AGAINST investment in a new operating system.

Upgrading the operating system is no small task and careful consideration needs to be given to a number of issues before such a major change is implemented within the organization. The need to provide better performance and greater reliability to business clients needs to be weighed against the cost of a new software and staff resistance towards change. Issues such as training needs, compatibility of new software and existing hardware and administration problems would need to be considered. The most important question is whether the organization is truly in need of an upgrade or is it just done because Microsoft has come up with something new? Existing Windows XP version and its working needs to be compared with newer software's in the market such as Windows 7 and vista and a cost benefit analyses needs to be prepared.

The Operating System Decision

With the business being in information service department, operating systems form a core part of the process and the fact that XP is currently being used can pose a number of problems. Not only does it require greater startup and shut down time but also has security threats from malware and viruses. With continuous advancement in technology XP might not support the upgrades in future which would make the business less adaptable to the ever changing environment. Since the current business environment is such that applications can only be installed on Windows and not on Linux, therefore the comparison of Linux operating system over Windows will not be eligible in this situation. Although different flavors of Linux are available in the market that comes in both open source and enterprise versions, but due to platform dependency of the important business applications, the report will only compare the eligible versions of Windows Operating System on which the applications will be executable.

Implementing such a drastic change is easier said than done. XP even with its problems is a well-liked operating system offering stability and predictability to its users. The culture of the organization might resist a change in the operating system as this would not only require training to existing staff but greater functions of the OS might mean that some of the staff is no longer required resulting in redundancy. If the current system is kept in use there would be no need for up gradations nor there any compatibility issues. But are greater efficiency, reliability and improved productivity being sacrificed just because the culture does not support change? Windows 7 is considered in detail below and the advantages that it might offer to the organization (Micheal, 2009).

Windows 7 versus XP:

Windows 7 was released on 22 July 2009, in an attempt to overcome some of the problems inherent in its predecessors. Although window 7 is not perfect it is a vast development from its ancestors.

The greatest attraction of windows 7 is the increase in efficiency and productivity that it offers along with faster boot up time, greater stability, and ease with which wireless networks can be created and joined and easier installation of hardware. These features can be tremendous help in information service business where customer is the top priority. Moreover, action center brings many security settings into one interface. The problems associated with XP in video drivers, sleep mode and memory leaks are eliminated with the implementation of Windows 7

Security threats in Windows 7 vs. XP:

Known unpatched vulnerabilities (severity is accounted for)

Extremely critical

Highly critical

Moderately critical

Less critical

Not critical

Total

Windows 7

0

1

1

1

2

5

XP

0

5

6

17

14

42

(source: Microsoft, n.d.)

From the table above it can be easily gathered that Windows 7 is far more advanced in protection of security threats than its predecessor XP. In information service sector, the information stored is of critical importance to the functioning of the business and it is of utmost importance that it is kept secured and is prevented from all sorts of virus attacks.

Cost and disadvantages of window 7:

The deciding factor for investment in OS would be the cost of the system. Two available options would be either the professional edition or the ultimate edition costing USD $299.95 and USD $319.95 respectively. Other cost would include the need to upgrade your current system as Windows 7 require more RAM, CPU power and video processing capability. The cost of training staff and redundancy cost if any would also need to be accounted.

Moreover, there have been complains regarding systems hanging once Windows 7 has been installed. Some of the features that were present in XP have been removed causing problems for existing users. The cost of matching window application to other systems and high cost of migration are also barriers that prevent change (Ethopian Review, 2009).