Is it time to start thinking about migrating to Windows 7?

Microsoft has already begun a major campaign talking up its soon to be released Windows 8 operating system. They are positioning it to try to make it relevant for the legions of iPad and Smartphone buyers to reconsider Windows as a choice for their operating system. While it is true that there are still some holdouts that haven’t migrated from XP to Windows 7 yet if you haven’t made the leap you may want to consider it soon. Microsoft wars that there will be no support for Windows XP beyond 2014.

“We are end-of-lifing XP and Office 2003 and everything prior in April 2014,” said Kevin Turner,  Microsoft’s chief operating officer, during a meeting with financial analysts this month. “So for all those companies that have the old products that haven’t quite started the refresh, guess what? ... It’s now time for [XP] to go.”

Typically Microsoft ends support for a product after 10 years which would mean this year but Microsoft extended support until 2014. Don’t expect another extension.

”We’re basically giving it a time-of-death stamp,” Turner said. Once it retires XP, Microsoft won’t offer support or security updates.

There are quite a few things to consider over the next few years. Most of us that are in the Microsoft house have a large commitment to their infrastructure and it would be difficult to make a complete change to another operating system. Windows 7 and the soon to be released Windows 8 are new operating systems, and though they retain some backwards compatibility with previous versions it is ever more apparent that you need to make the leap and either embrace the new operating systems or make a break and move on to something totally new.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.