Nearly Half of Companies Do Not Even Consider Moving to Windows 8 – WSJ

Windows 8 will soon see daylight and although Microsoft hopes to convince all users to make the move to its new OS, only half of the companies are actually considering doing it.

While the new operating system doesn’t seem so attractive for companies, a study conducted by Forrester Research and published by Wall Street Journal reveals that 10 percent of the firms will definitely skip the upgrade to Windows 8.

The good news for Microsoft is that 33 percent of the respondents admitted that their companies could deploy Windows 8 on their workstations at some point, but 47 percent of them said they haven’t yet considered the new OS.

Windows 7 thus seems to be a much more appealing solution for companies and their employees.

Or better said, was a much more appealing product, as another study performed in 2009, just before the Windows 7 debut, revealed that 66 percent of the users were ready to install the new operating system. Only 1 percent of them said they would skip it, while 27 percent didn’t consider it.

Windows 8 will be officially released next week together with the Surface tablet and will come in several flavors to also be installed on tablets and mobile phones.

Microsoft has very high expectations from its new operating system and says it’s at least as important as Windows 95, one of the products that changed the world completely, as Steve Ballmer said in early September.

Windows 8 however has generated an avalanche of mixed opinions, with plenty of users criticizing it for dumping traditional Windows elements, such as the “Start Menu.”