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Microsoft Likely To See a Boost in Windows 10 Sales This New Year (fortune.com)
Because many businesses are wary of new software updates, let alone a new operating system, Microsoft could see a significant surge in Windows 10 install base and sales in the New Year. From a report on Fortune: Businesses have been slow to upgrade all of their corporate computers to the latest Windows OS in 2016, according to research by IT services and technology company Adaptiva. Adaptiva said Tuesday that based on its findings, it believes companies are going to be upgrading to the latest version in 2017. Adaptiva based its findings from a survey it conducted over the summer of 300 IT professionals at various businesses. The company said that 41% of the companies it surveyed have been avoiding the upgrade, and some "have gone so far as to actively resist the move by using software to prevent or disable Windows 10 installation." The survey didn't say why exactly companies were avoiding the upgrade, but the majority of respondents that did upgrade "rated the Windows 10 migration process to be somewhat to extremely challenging," the survey said. According to latest figures provided by Microsoft, Windows 10 is running on over 400 million devices.
This is doubtful. 2017 will be the year of desktop Linux.
Why pay for it when you could use it for free, never activating and thus not seeing any ads?
Just add some UserMode Linux kernel, just to have the full GNU/Linux stack for extra geek points.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
And I predict a sharp decline in Windows 10 sales the year after, once businesses have gotten some experience in dealing with the Windows 10 system.
There were large reservations around the frequent upgrade requirements of Current Branch for Business but those are getting worked out as the servicing model matures and the tools to support it, like SCCM, get more robust. That said, a lot of companies do want the new OS because there are a lot of speed improvments, as well as security improvements that include better support for strong (mil spec) encryption out of the box, better protection against malicious "rootkit" like software with tools like Secure Boot and better tech to protect credentials from pass the hash attacks. All this relies on native UEFI support, an area where Win10 is far and away above Win7.
Make all the jokes you want about ads and such in the consumer builds (i dont like it either btw) but as a windows deployment specialist who is fielding regular head hunter calls when they find me on Linkedin, I can tell you Win10 enterprise is very desirable for many companies.
Win 10 is good OS that would be quickly adopted if/when MS decided to remove or make optional bolted-on telemetry malware. Such "feature" is simply not acceptable on a non-free product.
Unless you can get Windows 10 Enterprise, your business is Microsoft's business.. Even if you "castrate" Home and Pro, they still blab your business to Microsoft. And even if you *could* completely disable the spyware aspects of 10, how do you know that MS won't come along and turn it all back on via one of its updates? If you trust MS at all, you have your head in the sand.. The only way to win with Windows 10 is to NOT PLAY.... Let the MS apologists mod me down... It HAD to be said..
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I don't get this. The entire bump in sales numbers seems to be based on a theory that business haven't upgraded yet, so they will next year. I don't own a Tesla vehicle, but I also will not buy one next year. How does that theory make sense at all?
Sent from my TARDIS
If they stop selling any versions of Windows7, "sales" of Windows10 can only go in one direction. But how many of those "sales" where actually sold retail licenses ("Hi, i actually, really, like to buy a Windows10 License for 300 Bucks!"), and how many where Free-as-in-Herpes upgrades or preinstalled on a new PC?
Our company is one that initially resisted a Windows 10 migration. One of the big reasons is that we still rely on some older software that's incompatible with Windows 10 unless you keep a very expensive maintenance agreement current with the vendor, so you can get/use their latest update. In our case, we're trying to migrate off of that product completely in the next year or so, switching to one that's being customized for our needs at this time under a different maintenance agreement.
But realistically? That's only a product used by a small sub-set of our employees who deal directly with Finance / Accounting issues.
We found ourselves deploying Windows 10 to anyone else who needed a new PC, simply because we standardized on the Surface Pro 4 as the default hardware moving forward. (We have a lot of highly mobile workers involved in sales/marketing or creative design - and for those who aren't on Macs, they keep demanding a portable that's as light and thin as possible - with the drawing pen a big plus for a few situations. So the Surface Pro 4 just made the most sense to appease the majority of them while keeping things within our budget as long as we buy the model with the Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and the 256GB SSD in it.)
We did some "piecemeal" upgrades of other HP "Elitebook" laptops and Dell Latitudes out there as well. And the results? The move from Win 7 to 10 caused us a little initial pain, building a customized image that we felt was suitable for our users. (We wanted to make sure the "Metro" tiles on their START button only displayed the applications relevant to us, for example. No need for things like XBox or Candy Crush to show up prominently there! And we had a couple of situations where we had to make sure printer drivers on our Windows servers were upgraded, so the shared printers would still work properly for the Win 10 folks.) In a couple of cases, the Dell computers needed a BIOS upgrade before they'd complete the Win 10 upgrade properly, too. But overall? Things generally work fine. Most user issues/questions after the migration are centered around new features in Windows 10 they didn't understand how to use. One "gotcha" has been the "tablet mode" feature in 10. Some of the HP laptops have motion sensors in them that were probably intended only to detect a fall or shock, to power down spinning hard drives. But Win 10 uses it anyway to determine if the PC is "rotated", and tries to switch everything on screen into the tablet-friendly touch-screen mode. Needless to say, that's not good on a non touch-compatible laptop, AND it doesn't even sense the rotation motion reliably. It just winds up switch modes somewhat randomly when the PC is moved around.
Now that you can no longer buy Windows 7 licenses, I'm sure that Windows 10 license sales will go up.
Actual Windows 10 installations will probably not go up nearly as much, though, because many of those licenses will be used to activate with Windows 7 with the downgrade rights of the license.
What's the matter with Slashdot? Why has it become a Microsoft's propaganda vehicle?
With past versions of Windows a business could wait until it was stable and then upgrade, but with Windows 10 it is in constant development and is never stable. Once to twice per year Microsoft is doing an Windows 10 "update", which is actually a whole new operating system download and completely new installation. It's supposed to transfer everything across, but it actually fails miserably and destroys your computer. To make matters worse the updates can remove features or settings that you use.
The constant state of flux that Windows 10 is in would create chaos in your companies IT infrastructure. Windows 10 is all about what Microsoft want with no thought at all given to the customer/user.
... provided Microsoft decides that all those who enjoy the "free upgrade" option will have to start paying regularly.
Windows 7 goes end of extended life on January 14, 2020.
If the XP to 7 migration is anything to go by then you're going to get an uplift of Windows 10 installations by corporates starting around 6 months before that date.
Why migrate any earlier when Windows 7 works just fine and still gets security updates?
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Ok, sounds like you addressed the usability, logistical, and other tech issues about Win10 at your place of business.
However you did leave out the elephant in the room aka "Telemetry" and its related security issues. That kinda is a big thing and I guess you and those in charge just view it as a non-issue?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Is it possible to at least configure things so that Microsoft doesn't vomit unwanted applications onto your system right on first install? I was livid when I installed a fresh clean copy and suddenly I had Candy Crush and a bunch of other useless apps that I didn't want, need, or ask for, just magically appear on my machine.
In the serious editions of Win10 used by larger organisations, telemetry mostly is a non-issue. They don't have the same compulsory phone-home behaviour as the Pro/Home editions used by small businesses and home users do.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yep, for now there are still options to buy new PCs and run older versions of Windows (legally), though only if you're willing to jump through a few hoops at this point. There will be more serious questions when that possibility is also removed, which isn't far away now in business planning terms.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Because companies can only go so long before their machines have to be upgraded
Yeah and that's 2020 for Windows 7 and 2023 for Windows 8. By then it's likely that Windows as a platform will be completely irrelevant and passe.
This. My company is still on Windows 7, and have no plans to migrate any time soon (as in, over 24 months out). Actual security (well, known holes that are patched or monitored at least), control over upgrade application and compatibility with other enterprise software beats the Win10 roll-the-dice upgrade process and constant telemetry model.
Sounds like someone in the Windows marketing bubble is getting reamed over unrealistic projected 2016 adoption rates for their malware-disguised-as-an-OS.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
The unsigned article in Fortune reads like a Microsoft PR plant.
At least they took the MS PR Logo off before they republished it.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
You also aren't their customer because they don't even think you really have a choice. You are the product. Facebook style.
Bash is free software (as in speech) on all platforms. But GNU/Linux itself is not free as in beer for those who need to replace an incompatible laptop with a compatible one. Furthermore, laptops warranted by their manufacturer for use with GNU/Linux, such as System76 or Dell XPS, tend to have a higher sticker price than entry-level laptops warranted for use with Windows 10.
I think we're talking about different things here.
I'm talking about buying a new PC from a major vendor that comes with Windows 10 pre-installed but lets the customer replace that (legally) with Windows 7 or 8.1 post-sale. This is still allowed if the vendor offers it, but they aren't allowed to supply new machines with 7 or 8.1 preinstalled any more, only 10. I can't immediately find a reference, but I've seen reports that similar moves by Microsoft will prevent even selling new machines with those downgrade rights in a year or so.
I suspect you're talking about more general provisions under enterprise licensing agreements or some sort of developer programme. There are other schemes that Microsoft runs that let people do all kinds of things, but they aren't necessarily available to someone who just went to dell.com and bought a new XPS laptop.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Neither of which is a makeshift laptop. The reason Surfaces are used is that they work as Windows laptops, and they can be taken around w/o being anywhere near as unwieldy as a laptop.
Uh, no! Neither Android nor iOS have the breadth of business applications that Wintel has. The Surface is a Wintel platform, which can be used either as a laptop or in tablet mode. The Galaxies or iPads are media consumption devices, good for watching YouTube or playing games, but not much more. Not so w/ Surface, that is primarily used for content creation
No, that's kind of advertisement and perhaps a bait to get a few users going to the Windows store, and there was a story that the GPO policy which can control that is only available on Windows 10 Enterprise, not Pro.
Figures.
"Sales are in the toilet, so next year HAS to be much better!"
Not if they discover Linux, though.