Windows 7 was released to Microsoft’s volume licensing customers with Software Assurance on August 7th and Gavrielle Schuster has written an interesting blog post detailing several large-scale Windows 7 deployments which have already been completed and case studied. The three customers involved are:

Baker Tilly (Professional Services - UK): 2,200 users
City of Miami (Local Government - US): 2,235 users
Getronics (IT Services - Netherlands): 14,300 users

What caught my eye were the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) savings which have been directly attributed to Windows 7:

• Direct cost savings of IT labor dedicated to PC management are expected to be in the range of $89-160 per PC annually. That means IT Pros are saving up to two hours per desktop annually. For companies with several thousand PCs, this frees up a lot of valuable time, allowing IT departments to focus on more mission critical efforts and support their business more efficiently.
• Overall, the $70-$160 in savings per PC annually represents reduction of IT labor costs ranging from a 10-20%. For example, Baker Tilly has been able to re-focus their IT force on strategic projects and estimates they’ll save 18% on PC management costs.
• Companies are realizing power savings with Windows 7 that add to the direct savings in IT Labor. For example, the City of Miami estimates their expected power savings alone ($54 per PC per year) justifies their Windows 7 deployment.
• City of Miami also expects to save big on service desk costs. Previously, the city IT staff had to physically travel to the PC user’s location to resolve support issues. Windows 7 has advanced capabilities such as Remote Desktop, which now help the IT staff to diagnose and resolve issues remotely, saving both travel time and end-user downtime. Built-in features like the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR) have been described as a “nugget of gold in the operating system.” Specifically, PSR helps users communicate problems to the service desk, reducing the need to dispatch technicians to user locations by as much as 90%.

Windows 7 is one part of a much bigger Desktop Infrastructure Optimisation picture. If you’re interested in reading more about Desktop IO I recommend this whitepaper as a great starting point.