The hardware update savings struck me as a bit contrived. Maybe they didn't technically need to upgrade hardware in connection with OS upgrades, but hardware needs to be updated periodically regardless. Seems like they are just disassociating the timing and claiming savings.
I'm not sure whether you were aware that almost every major Windows release has required significant new hardware purchases? Corporate IT usually delays rolling out each new Windows (preferable, but senior management gets impatient), but that just spreads the increased TCO over the hardware refresh cycle.
2006: Vista premium required new hardware because it required WDDM1.0, and the first cards to support it were the NVidia 8800's [1] [2] and ATI R520 core [3]. Note the whole "Vista capable" fiasco [1] [5], hence Vista premium is the relevant point.
Windows 7 hardware requirements were the same as Windows Vista.
2012: Windows 8 requires at least 8 GB of RAM [4] even though Microsoft claims it has the same requirements as Vista (1 GB RAM). That also means the 32-bit version of 8 is crippled from the start. UEFI Secure Boot, also "not a requirement," will increase the hardware TCO for IT departments purchasing machines meant to have Windows 7 – they first have to disable Secure Boot.
It's understandable that machines from 2006 will not still be around in 2012, but Microsoft is definitely the cause of the increased hardware TCO.
Easy there, tiger. I just upgraded a Dell Latitude E6500 with 4Gb of RAM and an Athlon 5050e desktop also with 4 Gb from XP to Windows 8 Pro. Anecdotally, both boot faster and run Office 2010 faster than when they were running XP. This major upgrade has required no new hardware, except for a Logitech QuickCam Pro for which there is no 64-bit driver. I can probably run the desktop for another 5 years now.
You can't be serious, you are of course joking, and if you aren't then you are insane, and you reference an opinion piece as your source for that? Wow.
2012: Windows 8 requires at least 8 GB of RAM [4] even though Microsoft claims it has the same requirements as Vista (1 GB RAM). That also means the 32-bit version of 8 is crippled from the start.
I use Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 in a 4GB virtual machine. This works fine and is fast.
Contrived is a bit uncharitable. 5 year old hardware (which would be around the calibre of a Core Duo with 1Gb ram?) is still perfectly serviceable for your average office worker.
With Linux they have the choice to defer hw upgrade until it's justified for reasons other than 'we need to upgrade the OS and because the current hardware came with an OEM licence and so is not covered by any volume licencing deal that may be in place (without spending extra) its cheaper to buy a new PC with a Windows bundled than it is to just buy the software upgrade then the hardware when it's really needed'.
A city like Munich would, I would think, have a volume license arrangement and not rely on OEM licensing; they'd buy the hardware sans OS and provision their locally-configured OS image. I've never had issues with installing newer Windows versions on older hardware (within reason) in this scenario; though I don't use Windows as my primary OS I do have it around for when I need it.
If you were using Linux as your main OS, you would have also the same opinion.
When you have a fast machine with windows, 3 years later, it is slow as hell.
When you have a fast machine with linux, 3 years later (in fact 4 years in my case), it is (almost) the same speed and you do not want to change the hardware because you are afraid of potential hardware issues.
