Business are still evaluating their upgrades to Windows 10

May 23, 2016 09:23 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is aggressively pushing everyone on Windows 7 and 8.1 to switch to Windows 10 before July 29, when it ends the free upgrade promo, and while adoption of the new OS goes very well right now, there still are plenty of users who refuse the move.

While there are many reasons consumers simply want to stick with an older version of Windows, as far as businesses are concerned, an upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 is an important decision, and that’s why many of them are still evaluating the switch.

Richard Edwards, principal analyst for Enterprise ICT at Ovum, has recently explained that most businesses, many of them still on Windows 7, aren’t expected to move to Windows 10 in the coming months, especially because Microsoft is working to release the Redstone update this summer.

Businesses waiting for Redstone

Redstone, officially called by Microsoft the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, will arrive in two different waves, the second of which will be made available in spring 2017. It’s often referred to as the release that’ll bring Windows 10 to maturity, and many businesses are still waiting for this OS version to go live before making the switch to the new OS.

“Most organizations are still in the early planning stage when it comes to Windows 10. This means that most of the PCs running Windows 10 today are in the consumer segment of the market, and thus Windows 7 is probably running on 80 percent-plus business Windows PCs,” the analyst explains.

The en-masse migration to Windows 10 will most likely begin in the second half of the next year, just after the second Redstone wave sees daylight, and will probably expand to 2020, when Microsoft pulls support for Windows 7.

“Windows 7 is going to be around for many years to come. Microsoft has to find ways to please and delight these enterprise customers, and easing the burden on IT departments is one way to do this,” the analyst continues.

At this point, Windows 7 still has some 48 percent market share, despite the growth of Windows 10, so nearly 1 in 2 PCs out there are running this OS version. Support for Windows 7 ends in January 2020, but the free upgrade to Windows 10 offer will expire in just two months.