Business adoption of Windows 10 lagging in EMEA

North America leads the way as global adoption of new OS among businesses hits 11 per cent

Microsoft’s Windows 10 has been adopted by 10.6 per cent of businesses in EMEA, which sits behind North America’s 12 per cent 10 weeks after the OS launched, according to research.

Latin America and APAC trailed in the wake of EMEA, with 9.4 per cent and 8.5 per cent penetration rate respectively. Overall, 11 per cent of businesses worldwide have at least one installation of Windows 10 in operation.

The research comes from Spiceworks – a professional social network for the IT industry – which previously forecast that 40 per cent of businesses globally would be using the new Windows within a year of its launch.

However, Spiceworks said that if this rate of penetration continues, that figure could be surpassed.

It also found that large and medium-sized businesses are leading the charge when it comes to Windows 10 adoption. The report stated that about 23 per cent of companies with 500 employees or more would have at least one Windows 10 machine being used on site.

This is compared to 10.9 per cent of businesses with up to 100 employees, and just 5.3 per cent with up to 50 employees.

Spiceworks – which sourced its findings from anonymous, aggregated usage data – also reported that the software industry was a fair way ahead of other markets, with penetration sitting at 19.2 per cent.

Manufacturing saw 14 per cent of companies in that market using the OS, followed by government at 13 per cent, construction at 12.7 per cent and energy at 12.6 per cent.

The insurance market had 11.8 per cent of companies using Windows 10, along with retail and entertainment, and engineering brought up the rear with 11.7 per cent.

The IT network concluded that Windows 10 – which Microsoft announced earlier this month is now running on 110 million devices worldwide – has eclipsed the performance of previous operating systems.

Microsoft took about six months to sell 100 million licences for both Windows 7 and Windows 8 – at its current rate, Windows 10 could pass the one billion install goal the tech giant set for itself within a couple of years.

“What do the Microsoft and Spiceworks numbers really mean? If it isn't obvious by now, they both point to Windows 10 living up to the pre-launch adoption predictions so far,” Spiceworks said.