More than half of companies found to still be using Windows Server 2003

Thirteen-year-old operating system still has 18 per cent market share despite its EOL being a year ago, survey finds

Fifty-three per cent of companies still have at least one instance of Windows Server 2003 running, according to a study by Spiceworks. This is despite the server's end of life having passed almost a year ago.

The server's EOL was 14 July 2015, meaning the servers have been running without support since then. Microsoft said at the time that staying on the server could create "significant risks" for organisations' security.

Yet the server OS still has an 18 per cent market share, said Spiceworks, a professional social network for the IT industry which analysed anonymised aggregate usage data. It said IT professionals cited no immediate need to change, lack of time, and budget constraints as reasons for staying with Server 2003.

The study, looking at which hypervisors and operating systems power IT in 2016, found that the highest market share for server operating systems was Windows Server 2008 at 45 per cent, with a 24 per cent market share for Windows Server 2012.

The report also found that Dell had 37 per cent of the market share for server hardware, with 29 per cent of server hardware products coming from HP.

Spiceworks also looked at the increasing use of virtualisation in the workplace. The study found that 76 per cent of organisations use virtualisation today, with another nine per cent expected by 2017.