14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft continues the struggle to move users from Windows XP to a newer OS by April 8, 2014, reminding them with every single occasion that this particular platform will go dark early next year.
Figures provided by StatCounter and published by Neowin show that Windows XP continues to be the top choice in eight countries around the world, even though, overall, Windows 7 tops the charts.
At this point, a total of 54.79 percent of the computer users in China are still running Windows XP, while Cook Islands got the first place with a surprising 72.14 percent market share.
Cuba, North Korean, Morocco, Norfolk Island, and Vietnam are also among the countries that are still addicted to Windows XP.
30 to 40 percent of the users living in Algeria, Argentina, Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, India, Romania, Serbia, Taiwan, and Venezuela also run the soon-to-be 12-year-old operating system.
Microsoft, however, hopes that only 10 percent of the users will actually stick to Windows XP beyond the retirement date, as the company agrees that it’s almost impossible to move everyone on such a short notice.
Redmond also hopes that the upcoming launch of Windows 8.1 will convince more customers to dump XP, offering support to all businesses that wish to start the transition process to a newer OS version.
“While, we’ve been talking with enterprise customers for years about this deadline, we’re accelerating our efforts across business and consumer audiences. We have a number of programs designed to reduce cost and complexity of migrating like TouchWins, which incents partners to drive PC refresh with Windows 8.1 devices,” Brandon LeBlanc, senior marketing communications manager on the Marketing Group at Microsoft, explained.
Microsoft will no longer release update and security patches for Windows XP as of April 8, 2014, so security experts across the globe now warn that sticking to this platform will be a very risky decision.
It remains to be seen, however, how many users actually find Microsoft’s new Windows 8 and 8.1 operating system reason enough to dump the good old XP.