The global economic situation seems to have slowed down the adoption of Windows 11 by companies, however, although the outlook does not seem encouraging, experts believe that the transition to the new operating system will be carried out progressively throughout the next year.
Meanwhile, in this complex terrain Windows 10 continues to gain positions, which while the economic situation is not more favorable continues to be the most demanded option in business computing. However, this support seems to have an expiration date and the established deadline is the year 2025.
A migration that is scheduled for 2024
Everything seems to indicate that 2024 is the date marked on the calendar for the arrival of the new computer support, and that is that despite the economic difficulties, the end of Windows 10 will speed up this process. The vice president of research for devices and displays IDC, Linn Huang, affirmed in this sense that the inflection point will be next year and that “almost two years after the launch of the operating system, the total installed base of Windows 11 is between the 25% and 30%”.
To the data provided by Huang himself, are added those recently offered by StatCounter, whose adoption figures for the new operating system are already at 29%. Despite the significant increase in Windows 11, the numbers are still a long way from the 67% of Windows 10.
Huang believes that the rebound of Windows 11 will come at the beginning of the year and is that for the IDC vice president of device and screen research “today we are probably between a quarter and a third of the total installed base. But we can expect a strong evolution from the end of this year and next year”. He likewise has stated that many companies have already started migrating some users to version 11”.
According to the reports obtained, some companies are already more than halfway through the transition, others have finished the process, while others have not yet started the migrations.
Microsoft predicts a mass migration by the end of 2024
Known Microsoft’s third-quarter results report, the organization’s CEO, Satya Nadella, announced in this regard that 90% of the companies included in the Fortune 500 list were testing Windows 11 or had already implemented it. For his part, for Ranjit Atwal, director of research at Gartner, the situation seems different for smaller companies, which will opt for a much slower migration.
Most of the migrations to Windows in the companies occur 18-24 months before the End of Support (EOS) date of the current versionthat in the case of Windows 11 the deadline is October 2025. However, Huang was blunt regarding the macroeconomic concerns that mean that business migration is not booming.
Concerns about Windows 11
Although the new operating system has been well received by users and different IT departments, concerns about the new hardware requirements of Windows 11 fly over the stage. Linn Huang stated that the launch of the operating system in late 2021 “came at a really difficult time from a market point of view.”
The outlook was marked by factors such as the supply chain problems as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the current slump in PC demand. Now the question raised is that as the economic situation is, if it does not improve, if the migrations of users to Windows 11 will continue to occur.
Microsoft thus faces a serious danger, which is that companies could try to resort to other platforms, highlighting the advantageous position of Apple devices that seem to be increasingly present in companies. Huang said that “in many cases, Windows 10 PCs might not migrate to Windows 11. MacOS is very, very strong.” However, ChromeOS is currently not a real competitor to Microsoft.
