Microsoft will soon drop support for the aged operating system

Jul 29, 2013 09:39 GMT  ·  By

Everyone knew it would happen eventually, but it's one thing to expect it and another thing to see it come to pass: Microsoft's Windows XP operating system is fading away at last.

It would have occurred quite a few years ago too, if Windows Vista didn't prove to be less welcomed than its predecessor.

Fortunately for Microsoft, Windows 7 did well for itself, and now Windows 8 is steadily extending its reach, albeit more slowly than some would have liked.

And with Windows 7 likely to become the new Windows XP in terms of corporate and business use, letting Windows XP go is the logical course of action.

It's actually believed that the Enterprise PC market will flourish with Windows XP out of the way.

Sure, Windows XP did well to hold on for so long, but it's a relic at this point, and will hold development back if it doesn't step aside.

Case in point, the enterprise market has not had any major PC hardware upgrades for over two years now.

HP and Dell have already moved away from XP and, as a consequence, have seen sales from the enterprise PC business improving.

Since they are long-term vendors, things can only improve from here. Enterprise PC shipment growth will start in 2014, and grow further from there.

Moreover, HP actually expects sequential improvements of 15% in the third quarter of 2013.

Acer and ASUS are sure to follow with their own positive reports, though perhaps not as quickly.

The phenomenon will affect both desktops and notebooks. We might even see a short period where desktops do better than laptops for a change.

Then again, with the market share of notebooks matching or exceeding that of desktops in some case, this may only be wishful thinking. Especially now that Chromebooks are getting a foothold.