The Washington Post recently featured an article about how the new system upgrades for Microsoft and Apple (due out likely towards the end of the year in time for the holidays) might impact those in the market for new computers. Although the article is directed at individual consumers performing “typical” tasks, businesses and those working on virtual teams might want to pay special attention to the coming upgrades and their implications. Unfortunately, the article does not discuss any recent developments with Linux distributions, but for those of us using Windows or Mac OS, here is what we can expect:

• Windows is upgrading the much-maligned Vista to Windows 7. The upgrade for current Vista users should be smooth, but if you are still clinging to XP, be prepared for a multi-step, complicated process to convert to Windows 7. Mac is updating OS X Leopard to OS X Snow Leopard.
• Although neither company has released anything official, it can be expected that each system will require a minimum of 1 gigabyte of RAM to run.
• The new systems will take some tasks previously performed by the main processor and offload them to the graphics chip–so a good graphics chip will be important.
• Lastly, it might be difficult to get by with a single core processor unless you are performing very light tasks. Snow Leopard is also rumored to be Intel Mac compatible only.

What does this mean for virtual teams? While a system upgrade itself may be a good thing, for teams using resource intensive software for collaboration this could mean the need to invest in new and better hardware to keep up with the new operating systems plus the collaboration software already in use. One example is users of virtual worlds, which also often require a large amount of CPU usage, good graphics chips, and a lot of RAM to work effectively. We have learned that having appropriate hardware to run programs like virtual worlds is a major obstacle for those who use them regularly to collaborate.

The bottom line is that if virtual teams are looking to upgrade to the new operating systems quickly, they may also have to budget for some hardware upgrades to keep things running smoothly. On the other hand, those already in the market to buy some new hardware might want to postpone their purchases until the release of the new operating systems.