Business Customers Say Windows 7 + Internet Explorer 9 = IT Harmony

I’ve mentioned before the strong commercial adoption we’re seeing with Windows 7 (a few companies we’ve talked about are GM, Spir-IT and Feeding America), and we couldn’t be happier to help our business customers make the upgrade to take full advantage of the enhanced security, manageability and performance that Windows 7 offers.

Today I want to talk about another aspect of these deployments and the feedback we’re hearing from customers moving to Internet Explorer 9. IE9 is designed with businesses in mind, and customers are taking notice. Businesses are benefitting from a better browsing experience for their employees who rely more and more on the Internet and web-based apps to get their work done. They can be more productive with the improved search features, streamlined design, the ability to pin sites and faster performance. Standardizing on one modern browser minimizes security and compliance issues for the company and the IT department.

Businesses also love the return on investment they’re seeing with IE9. Microsoft recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to take a deeper look at customers deploying IE9 and reported a potential risk-adjusted savings over $3.3 million based on a composite organization with 60,000 employees using IE9 over IE8 within just three years. Customers also reported some productivity improvement for power users and browser-intensive users and potential benefit in the form of the HTML5 support that allowed developers to write the same markup, reducing the costs of creating new applications. For a more detailed review of the benefits of deploying IE9, including potential cost savings, see Forrester’s TEI study.

Not only is IE9 delivering a beautiful experience for business customers, but it’s also really giving them a complete Windows experience. Businesses are telling us they love how IE9 truly delivers on its promise of being fast, clean and trusted. Today on the Exploring IE blog, Roger Capriotti shared more about why IE9 is good for business; I encourage you to check it out.

One example of an enterprise seeing great value from their IE9 deployment is global electronics and engineering firm, Siemens. Based in Germany, Siemens operates in over 190 countries and employs more than 400,000 people in 1,600 locations worldwide. Earlier this year, Siemens participated in a Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for Internet Explorer 9, deploying the browser to more than 2,100 global employees participating in a pilot deployment of Windows 7 Enterprise. Siemens expects to deploy Windows 7 Enterprise along with a mix of Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Office 2007 to all their employees over the next one to two years. Here’s what John Minnick, Director, Global Siemens Workplace Architecture Team, Siemens says:

As we move strategically into cloud technology, transform our workplace, and enhance services for our customers, the Internet browser becomes one of our most essential business tools.

Siemens tested IE9 for compatibility with their web apps and evaluated the enhanced interface, and found IE9 easy to deploy, manage and support. The IT department is even more excited about built-in F12 developer tools to design, test and debug web pages, as well as support for HTML5 to help standardize and minimize browser and app compat issues in the future. Again, here is what Minnick had to say:

I was very impressed that of the almost 400 web applications we tested with Internet Explorer 9, everything worked. If we had a problem with an application, we could get the desired functionality in the compatibility mode without a lot of time or trouble.

When business customers deploy Internet Explorer 9 with Windows 7, they can rest assured they’re taking full advantage of the support, deployment and management technologies that the Windows platform has to offer. If you’re working on your Windows 7 deployment now, there’s no better time to add IE9 to your rollout. You can find out more details on IE9 for the enterprise here. For more information on Forrester’s findings, register for Microsoft’s webinar on August 16 at 9am PDT.