(Source: Business Wire)In advance of the worldwide launch of Windows 7 next week, Dell is unveiling a new series of Windows 7 consulting, management and support services to help companies and organizations better prepare migration plans to the new operating system. The consulting and services offerings are designed to help businesses of any size efficiently migrate to Windows 7 with fixed-scope consulting engagements to help them save money and time.

The company also announced that Dell Latitude laptops, Dell OptiPlex desktops and Dell Precision workstations are ready to ship with Windows 7 on Oct. 22. Dell also said that it would begin taking preorders of commercial laptops and desktops with Windows 7 installed beginning Oct. 18.

The News:

Best Practices for Windows 7 Deployment

Dell has designed, deployed and supported select customers in Windows 7 early adopter programs including Baker-Tilly, Betfair and Hoover City Schools. In addition, Dell currently has more than a thousand Windows 7 pilot users internally. The Dell Global Services organization documented these early migration experiences to enhance its consulting and services offerings with key learnings, proven methods and reference architectures that customers will benefit from as they consider migrating to the new operating system.

Windows 7 Readiness Consulting

Dell's Windows 7 Readiness Assessment helps organizations understand the requirements and challenges of migrating to a new platform and jointly creates a plan to efficiently deploy Windows 7. Part of the Dell ProConsult services portfolio, the new assessment service uses electronic discovery, Web-based surveys, best practices, comparative data and reference architectures for a short, effective consulting engagement.

Dell works with customers to assess if their systems are capable of running Windows 7, which applications are being used and which are compatible with Windows 7. Ensuring application compatibility is critical to a smooth migration, especially for browser-based applications, and Dell can assist customers in compiling and creating an inventory, assessment, remediation, and finally packaging and deployment of a solution. Dell also helps customers understand the impact of migrating on critical business processes, end users, as well as server and network infrastructures. Using the results of the assessment, Dell works with customers to design an implementation plan, including providing training for end-users & IT support staff.

Dell services are fine-tuned to address the specific IT pain points of OS migrations and have significant, proven experience in OS and data migrations.