It's no secret that the past few years have been the era of the frozen IT budget. As the global economy went south in 2008, most enterprises went into belt-tightening mode.

Now a thaw is beginning, according to a new report by research firm Forrester, as tech spending is set to increase and major corporate PC refreshes are scheduled for the next 12 to 18 months that will introduce a new operating system, productivity suite, browser and applications. While this is great news for Windows 7, it opens up a new set of challenges for the Internet Explorer browser.

Forrester anticipates that IT managers will begin major corporate PC refresh cycles by mid- to late 2010. Enterprise-wide adoption of Windows 7 will likely occur at the same time, according to Forrester, as IT managers develop upgrade strategies, test their applications, and figure out if client virtualization is part of their plans.

More: http://pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/196944/windows_7_benefits_as_budgets_thaw.html