Recently, we announced that Windows 7 has sold more than 350 million licenses since its release 18 months ago, which means customers – businesses of all sizes, along with consumers – are embracing Windows 7. We hear regularly from customers about successful deployments and the great return on investment they received with their Windows 7 deployments. Today, I want to share some interesting and successful deployment stories from customers out of a variety of industries, including education, travel and leisure, and manufacturing. These organizations are meeting business and end-user needs and experiencing immediate benefits with their Windows 7 deployments.

The San Diego Unified School District is committed to bringing modern technology to its classrooms to better serve students. With the help of a state-funded proposition (the 21st Century Classroom Initiative or i21), schools implemented Windows 7 netbooks for students and tablet PCs for teachers across the San Diego Unified School District. The school district reported an enriched learning environment and believes that improved computer performance directly ties to better learning outcomes for students. Learn more about the San Diego School District’s use of Windows 7 in their video and blog post here.

Royal Caribbean Cruises has also had end-user success with Windows 7. A recent internal IT survey found end users are “very positive” about their Windows 7 computers. Royal Caribbean’s IT team also found that Windows 7 Enterprise has made the company’s overall IT security stronger. Royal Caribbean has deployed Windows 7 Enterprise to almost 900 computers and now has plans to take Windows 7 to its employees worldwide.

Tsingtao Brewery found ease with their Windows 7 roll out by using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. Tsingtao’s IT department was happy to discover that they could deploy Windows 7 Enterprise in only 40 minutes, allowing end users to get up and running on the system quickly and give IT staff the ability to centrally manage and distribute software updates by domain. In their case study, Tsingtao talks more about how Windows 7 has enhanced control of the IT environment and made it easier to maintain the health of the company’s PCs.

Last week we also kicked off the Windows Customer Showcase page and promised more customer additions regularly. Today, we’ve added info from customers Petroleum Development Oman, TECO Energy and the Italian Ministry of Defense – check out highlights of their Windows 7 deployment here.

These and other customers share more about their Windows 7 experiences in their case studies on the Windows Enterprise case study site. We hope their stories will help your team see how you can add value to your own organization with Windows 7.