BMW cars don't run on Windows 7

Speaking at an Intel sponsored event promoting the latest range of Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, a BMW IT Manager said the car giant had begun migrating its 85,000 Windows desktops from XP to Windows 7.

The fact that anyone is upgrading XP to anything is somewhat remarkable.

Windows XP was launched 10 years ago, and most businesses have continued to use it rather than upgrade to Windows Vista, launched in January 2007.

Upgrading Windows desktops is also likely to require a disproportionate amount of effort, so many firms are likely to delay the move as long as possible.

BMW’s Thomas Schmidt said the firm had begun the migration now because Microsoft support for XP would eventually be stopped and the car giant did not want to wait until the last minute to begin the upgrade.

However, Schmidt said the car giant was using its own IP [custom software] to help automate the upgrade. Attempting such an IT overhaul without custom software would presumably be far less than ideal.

Certainly many third-party service providers are offering migration services to help firms migrate from XP to Windows 7 without needing to develop their own IP.

On a lighter note, Microsoft’s UK director of Windows Clients, Nina Sundberg, declined to comment on what one speaker at the event referred to as the Vista Effect, which could be the sound of a sales plummeting. But even Sundberg acknowledged that Vista had not been as successful as Microsoft had hoped.