14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft encourages everyone to make the move to Windows 8 as soon as possible, emphasizing that Windows XP is a very unsecure operating system that puts their data at risk.
As a result, the company will no longer provide support for Windows XP after April 8, 2014, so users will have basically no other option than to move to a newer platform.
The industrial PC (IPC) market, on the other hand, will stick to Windows XP many years from now, a report published by IMS Research reveals.
“Widespread acceptance will take at least four years as IPC suppliers release new compatible products and end-users gain confidence in using the new technology,” IHS analyst Toby Colquhoun was quoted as saying by Drives.co.uk.
Most IPCs are still running Windows XP, so jumping directly to Windows 8 is highly unlikely, the report shows. In 2014, when Microsoft will officially discontinue XP, most of them are expected to deploy Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.
“A large number of IPCs continue to be sold with Windows XP,” the analyst added. “The functionality provided by this platform is suitable for a great number of applications, and so there is no urgency for most IPC customers to change operating system.”
“That said, in 2013, few industrial PC suppliers will offer Windows XP with their newest products,” he adds. “Most customers adopting the latest IPC technology will choose Windows 7 as it has a familiar user interface and is already proven in other applications.”
Windows XP is right now the second most popular operating system in the entire world, with a market share that’s very close to the one of Windows 7, currently the number one software in this particular segment.
XP, however, has started losing ground as more users are finally making the switch to newer platforms, so Microsoft expects the transition to be completed by April 2014.