Microsoft has staked a great deal of its future success on Windows 10 as the new platform for its “cloud-first, mobile-first” strategy. The company is hoping to push Windows 10 to over a billion users over the next few years, which it hopes will maintain its position as the desktop OS leader as well as improve its position in mobile. IT research and consulting company Gartner released a report this morning that spells out some good news for Microsoft and its Windows 10 strategy.
Simply put, Windows 10 is likely to gain ground with the enterprise more quickly than in the past. That’s vital, as the enterprise represents Microsoft’s most important customer base with regard to the continued dominance of Windows and future gains in cloud services. Accordingly, Windows 10 migrations should be underway at 50% or more of all enterprises by the beginning of 2017, an adoption rate that is quite a bit faster than Microsoft enjoyed with Windows 7.
And it’s not just the enterprise:
“In the consumer market, a free upgrade coupled with broad legacy device support and automatic over-the-air upgrades ensures that there will be tens of millions of users familiar with the operating system (OS) before the end of 2015,” said Steve Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner.
In addition, a third or so of all notebooks shipped by 2018 will have touchscreens. This is a significant increase that is likely driven by the improved touch experience with Windows 10.
Finally, remote application delivery will increase by 2019:
“Organizations will centralize a number of applications over the next three years to enable platform- independent computing,” said Nathan Hill, research director at Gartner. “As platform-specific Windows applications dip below a certain threshold and become a “manageable minority” — that is 20 to 30 percent of the application portfolio — organizations will find it increasingly financially and operationally attractive to ring-fence all of them using device-independent delivery options.”
Generally, the Gartner report demonstrates that Microsoft is heading in the right direction with its Windows 10 strategy in general. That’s good news as Windows 10 continue to gain market share and Windows 10 Mobile hopes to benefit from a greater developer commitment to making Universal apps that leverage both desktop and mobile platforms.
