According to a recent study, upgrading to Internet Explorer 9 from Internet Explorer 8 can save you a considerable amount of money. The study concluded that migrating to Internet Explorer 9 not only saves you money, but also offers better malware protection, improved security, and increased productivity.
The study was conducted by Forrester Research for Microsoft and conducted company interviews in April of 2011. The data was collected from six hand-picked unidentified organizations that upgraded from IE8 to IE9 as a part of Microsoft’s Tech Adoption Program.
The study estimated that it would take 12 to 18 months to deploy IE9 throughout the organizations involved. This time included “testing, application remediation, pilot, and distribution.” So how long did it take? It took them roughly 2,020 hours to migrate to IE9.
Several tools were used for the migration, which included the “Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool, Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), Configuration Manager, System Center Essentials 2010 (Essentials), [System] Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, Application Compatibility Toolkit, and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).”
“Interviewed customers reported that one of the biggest hurdles they had to overcome prior to making a decision to upgrade the browser was gaining an inventory of applications in their environment and determining the scope of application remediation. Companies frequently saw this as a bigger problem than turned out to be the case,” the report states.
The study’s conclusion? Based on the total economic impact analysis, a migration to IE9 represented a net present value of $3.3 million over a three years time span, with payback occurring after 15 months. “The data collected in this study indicates that migrating from Internet Explorer 8 to Internet Explorer 9 has the potential to provide significant quantifiable benefits and positive net benefit after Year 2.”
You can download the study here, titled: “The Total Economic Impact Of Windows Internet Explorer 9”
