I've been running Windows 7 via VirtualBox for a few months now. It's okay. Better than XP? Marginally. Worth money to upgrade? Not really.
Windows 7 will probably get its "foothold" on the consumer market the same way Vista did: when people buy new computers they get Windows 7. I speculate that the vast majority of Windows users are simply running the same O/S that their computer shipped with, whether that is XP, Vista, or even ME (I've been shocked by how many people I know are still running ME (in a vague sense of the word "running")).
Of course that doesn't apply to techies like us, but when you hold mass market share you have mass market demographics.
As far as businesses upgrading their workstations to Windows 7... no way. Windows XP is pretty stable (they've been improving it for like 8 years, it oughta be) and there are few compelling reason for a business to invest in Windows 7. The only way MS will get Windows 7 into the business market will be to force it (via OEMs or by stopping support for XP/Vista).
I think Microsoft's outlook (pun not intended) is pretty gray in the O/S market.
EDIT: changed "no" reasons to "few" as trezor pointed out at least one reason I was unaware of.
Usually, I'd be the last one to defend Microsoft, but sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. I installed and played with Win7 on my home PC, and it is leaps and bounds better than WinXP and WinVista. Win7 was more responsive than XP on my oldish PC, though it did use more RAM to accomplish this feat. It's much more usable than Vista, and some of the new desktop features are quite nice.
This does not mean I'll give up my MacBook anytime soon for a Windows machine, and neither will Win7 replace Ubuntu as my OS of choice on the PC, but you have to acknowledge the fact that Microsoft is finally getting the hang of this OS business.
The real question is not whether Windows 7 is worth its cost, but if the downgrade-to-XP option is still worth to pay for.
IMHO, Win7 sucks less than Vista - it's snappy, partly because we have much faster computers (at least I do) than when Vista was launched, and is much less of a disruption, even for a XP user. It was inevitable: software designed for XP may have problems with Vista, but programs designed for Vista run well under 7.
Windows 7 has lots of new features which appeals to the corporate market compared to Windows XP. You have more options for locking down workstations with GPOs, you have UAC which improves security. Searching for stuff is miles ahead of Widows XP, which means increased productivty.
Granted, most of those features were added in Vista, but Windows 7 actually runs quite decent on older hardware, something Vista wasn't exactly acclaimed for doing.
Windows 7 also includes lots of features which are handy for portable machines like laptops. Bitlocker anyone? You also have transparent, automatic VPN back into your company's domain, either trough native IPv6 or tunneled connections. In either case IPSec is used to secure communication. In effect, the windows domain model just got network transparent. That's a pretty neat thing in itself.
Again, some things came with Vista, but Windows 7 delivers it all in a much more appealing package.
I'll shut up before I sound like a Microsoft market-droid, but to say Windows 7 adds no features which would make an upgrade worthwhile in the corporate environment is either disingenuous or misinformed.
exactly, I'm sick of the "but XP gets the job done"-attitude. Yes, there's no killer feature, that would absolutely demand an upgrade, but all the minor changes and usability improvements add up. I'm kinda annoyed that I have to use a XP machine at work, since I've been spoiled by W7 beta at home for a while now.
MS won't make a mistake of forcing people to adopt WIN7 otherwise the result would be same as IE - there are many, especially in the 3rd world countries where they are just looking for a reason to dump windows but they keep it because it came pre-installed - just 2 countries (china & india) can make windows dead in matter of years (if not months) if they try to force it ...
also who knows??, there are new guys (read Android, WebOS, OS-X) who MIGHT be waiting for the opportunity to jump in ... i dont know why but i feel that eventually google will enter the game by getting android from phones to netbook to notebook....!! if the brand like HTC starts making netbook/notebook then i won't be surprise if it comes pre-installed with android !!
Windows 7 will probably get its "foothold" on the consumer market the same way Vista did: when people buy new computers they get Windows 7. I speculate that the vast majority of Windows users are simply running the same O/S that their computer shipped with, whether that is XP, Vista, or even ME (I've been shocked by how many people I know are still running ME (in a vague sense of the word "running")).
Of course that doesn't apply to techies like us, but when you hold mass market share you have mass market demographics.
As far as businesses upgrading their workstations to Windows 7... no way. Windows XP is pretty stable (they've been improving it for like 8 years, it oughta be) and there are few compelling reason for a business to invest in Windows 7. The only way MS will get Windows 7 into the business market will be to force it (via OEMs or by stopping support for XP/Vista).
I think Microsoft's outlook (pun not intended) is pretty gray in the O/S market.
EDIT: changed "no" reasons to "few" as trezor pointed out at least one reason I was unaware of.