Windows 10 migrations to continue into 2018 - Context

Analyst says businesses have made "slow progress" when upgrading to the latest operating system

Businesses are in no desperate hurry to migrate to Windows 10, and could be doing so well into 2018, according to Context.

The analyst said that the popularity of Windows 7 means businesses have no urgent need to upgrade.

In the consumer Windows Home space, Windows 10 has 100 per cent market share, based on Context's Western European data for distribution. When it comes to the business area, share on the same basis was 92 per cent. But only 26 per cent of share goes to "pure" Windows 10, with 66 per cent accounting for the version which allows users to downgrade to Windows 7 first, before later reinstalling the latest OS.

"Pure Windows 10 market share has gone up, and there's been a steady increase," said Context senior analyst Marie-Christine Pygott. "But it's still a relatively small part of the sales figure when we compare to Windows 7, which is the most popular of previous releases. There is slow progress - but it is progressing."

Pygott added that many businesses - especially larger ones - will be in no hurry to migrate.

"It is hard to say [when migrations will speed up] because it depends on the size of the business, and not all of them started testing Windows 10 straight away," she said. "We had the whole migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 happen in 2014, which was not really that long ago. There is no instant need for companies to migrate straight away. They are taking their time, and Windows 7 is extremely popular.

"There is slow progress - but it is progressing."

"They haven't felt the need to migrate straight away. They are piloting and testing and this can take months, depending on your organisation. I think we are starting to see it in the SMB segment, and we will see larger enterprises migrate next year. [Migrations will happen] throughout next year and even into 2018. Expect the rollout to take a while - it will not happen within the first few months of next year - it is a longer-term thing. This is not unusual for a larger company - there is no obvious or instant need. Windows 7 will be supported, even though new systems will now only feature Windows 10."