14 DAY TRIAL // Market analysis firm Canalys has published a new report to reveal that the worldwide PC market grew 17.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, but also to explain that the approaching demise of Windows XP won’t make much difference for the modern Windows 8.
Basically, Canalys did nothing more than to state the obvious, as we all know that more users prefer to move to Windows 7 instead of Windows 8, but this could be another warning for the tech giant Microsoft that its modern platform is yet to gain traction.
“Commercial demand for PCs is improving as businesses face up to the need to migrate from Windows XP. But Windows 8 will not be a major beneficiary as many businesses will take the safer option of moving to Windows 7,” Canalys said in the report.
“This provides an opportunity for vendors with strong enterprise sales and an established B2B channel in 2014. Vendors heavily exposed to the consumer notebook market still face an uncertain future. Windows 8 uptake remains weak and the PC refresh cycle shows no sign of returning.”
Windows XP is currently being used by approximately 29 percent of desktop computers worldwide, which is probably the most obvious sign that not all consumers would complete the transition to another platform by the time the retirement date comes.
Microsoft plans to stop releasing updates and security patches for Windows XP on April 8, so you still have about two months to pick your next destination.
Unsurprisingly, many users have already expressed their intention to stick to Windows XP beyond retirement date, mostly due to the hardware upgrades that are mandatory when migrating to another modern operating system.
This is indeed a bit worrying for Microsoft, not only because lots of users would be exposed to attacks, but also due to the fact that Windows 8 and 8.1 might lose ground.