14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is working at full speed to bring Windows 10 to the market this summer, and the company shares details about its ongoing efforts on every single occasion, so it’s no wonder that thousands of people across the world watched Redmond’s online streaming last week.
But all these Windows 10 announcements that many of us consider pretty great are actually hurting the PC industry because no one wants to purchase a new computer anymore, simply because the Windows 10 launch is just around the corner and everyone’s waiting for this moment.
Colette Kress, the chief financial officer of NVIDIA, himself has said that, pointing out that, while Windows 10 is expected to bring an increase in new PC sales, the existing news and all the buzz that’s created right now around the new operating system are convincing more and more potential buyers to delay their purchases.
And this does make sense. Windows 10 will arrive in the summer of 2015 with a plethora of changes, including new features, new apps, and an overhauled UI, so it’s becoming one of the biggest makeovers that Windows has received in years.
Free Windows upgrades
But what’s going to be really interesting to watch is the evolution of the PC industry after Windows 10 comes out. Windows 10 will be offered free of charge to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users within the first year after launch, so the new OS could actually fail to ignite a significant boost in new PC sales.
And yet, there’s no doubt that more users would upgrade once Windows 10 becomes available, and those coming from XP and Vista are the ones mainly targeted by the release.
All of them would have to pay for Windows 10 (pricing is not yet available), while their computers would need hardware upgrades to cope with the requirements of the new OS, so the PC market is indeed expected to experience a slight recovery later this year.