Windows 7 Ships 240 Million Units with Enterprises Accelerating Adoption -- Campus Technology

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Windows 7 Ships 240 Million Units with Enterprises Accelerating Adoption

By Jeffrey Schwartz
11/03/10

Microsoft said Windows 7 adoption among enterprises is exceeding expectations.

The company disclosed it has shipped 240 million copies of Windows 7, accounting for approximately 20 percent of all 1.2 billion Windows PCs now in use. The company today commemorated the recent anniversary of the release of Windows 7, which shipped Oct. 22, 2009, pointing to enterprise adoption of the OS.

In an interview, IDC analyst Al Gillen said many enterprises have already embarked on Windows 7 migrations. And those that haven't will. "Ninety percent of customers have plans in some way, shape, or form to be moving toward Windows 7," Gillen said.

That was a figure echoed by Forrester Research, which yesterday released a report focused on Windows 7 commercial adoption. Only 7 percent of those surveyed by Forrester a year ago said they planned to deploy Windows 7 this year, yet 46 percent actually said they have begun or will begin deployments.

An additional 42 percent said they plan to deploy Windows 7 in more than 12 months, while 1 percent indicated they are considering alternatives such as Windows 8, Macintosh systems, and PCs running Linux desktop distributions.

For now, Windows 7 accounts for 10 percent of all commercial desktops, the report noted. The large majority, 75 percent, still run Windows XP, while 7 percent are running Vista. The findings are based on a survey of 774 decisions makers in enterprises in North America and Europe.

Enterprise-wide deployments will likely take years, the study found. Forty percent said they will upgrade PCs as they reach the end of life, while 39 percent said they are planning enterprise-wide migrations to avoid supporting two operating systems.

According to Microsoft, there are three factors driving upgrades to Windows 7: the "consumerization" of IT, desktop virtualization and the cloud. Individuals that have Windows 7 at home are demanding it at work, said Gavriella Schuster, general manager for Windows Client, in an interview.

"I see that as a big shift where IT is taking that pressure much more seriously now," she said. "Users have gotten to the point where they say, 'if you're not going to give me Windows 7 at work, or you're not going to give me the experience I want, I'm just going to do it.' IT realizes they can't control that any more."

About the Author

Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.

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