14 DAY TRIAL // New research conducted by analyst firm Gartner shows that the PC market is expected to drop 1 percent year over year in 2016 and total 287 million, but at the same time, to be on pace to increase by no less than 4 percent in 2017.
How is this possible? Windows 10 devices featuring Intel’s Skylake processors will drive sales of premium products forward, the company says, so the PC market can significantly recover next year, when adoption of the new operating system will reach record levels.
Enterprises will also be in charge of boosting Windows 10 adoption this year, with Gartner saying that the new operating system is very likely to achieve better figures than Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 in this particular side of the market.
“Ultramobile premium devices are expected to drive the PC market forward with the move to Windows 10 and PCs built around Intel’s Skylake architecture,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “We expect that businesses will deploy Windows 10 faster than with previous Windows upgrades.”
Windows 10 a must-have for Skylake devices
Skylake processors, currently supported by pre-Windows 10 OS versions too, will only work with Microsoft’s latest operating system starting 2017, so users of computers with such CPUs have only 18 months to upgrade. New CPUs that will launch in the next few years will also support Windows 10 exclusively too.
Enterprises are only now starting to plan the migration to Windows 10, but many are expected to begin the transition by the end of the year, Gartner adds.
Microsoft has a goal of bringing Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by 2017, so it certainly needs enterprises to speed up their pilot programs for the new operating system.
“Given the shorter testing and evaluation period, many businesses could start to migrate by the end of 2016,” Atwal continues. “By the end of 2017, many businesses are looking to move as much as 40 percent of their installed base onto new Windows 10 devices, mainly driven by the appeal hybrid touch-screen 2-1. This will be the catalyst for growth in the PC market in 2017.”
In the consumer market, Windows 10 has a little over 10 percent market share, with these figures expected to grow bigger in the coming months, as the free upgrade is still available until July 29.