Business still stuck on old version of Microsoft Windows

According to the Spiceworks 2017 OS Adoption Trends survey, released Monday, some 52% of businesses are still running at least one instance of Windows XP, despite support for the OS ending on April 8, 2014.

The survey also noted that 9% of businesses are still running at least one instance of Windows Vista, which will lose support on April 11, this year and good riddance.

Although more businesses are running XP than Vista, the impending drop in support for Vista should encourage businesses to upgrade their machines, said Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks, in a press release announcing the survey.

“Although some IT departments aren’t able to upgrade on time due to a lack of time or budget, it’s critical for IT professionals to make a business case for more resources, given the security risks of running operating systems with un-patched vulnerabilities,” Tsai said in the release.

While these numbers are interesting, they don’t necessarily tell the whole story, the release noted. When it comes to the overall share of the different operating systems, the percentage of each OS relative to the total number of machines it is running on breaks down like this:

• Windows 7 – 69%
• Windows XP – 14%
• Windows 10 – 9%
• Windows 8 – 5%
• Windows Vista – 1%

So, while many businesses are still running at least one instance of Windows XP, Windows 7 is far and above the most popular version of Microsoft’s OS. Windows 7 also claims the highest penetration rate, at 87%.

The adoption and penetration rates of Windows 10 are also growing, recently leapfrogging the penetration rates of Windows 8 and Windows XP, the release said. Only about 54% of businesses are running at least one instance of Windows 10, up from 38% in July 2016. However, that number is supposed to reach 73%, with 17% overall system share, by July 2017, the release said.

Running unsupported systems presents its own unique risks, and some 90% of IT professionals are concerned about those risks, the survey found.

If you still have XP and Vista deployed contact Taybridge Consulting to plan your migration strategy to Windows 10 and move your data to the cloud with Microsoft Office 365 and a SharePoint based data strategy.

Interestingly this week also saw publication from StatCounter that Android had overtaken Windows as the internet’s most used operating system.

Research from web analytics company StatCounter found Android now accounts for a larger share of internet usage than Windows for the first time. During March 2017, Android users represented 37.93 percent of activity on StatCounter’s network versus 37.91 percent for the Microsoft operating system. It’s a small gap for sure — and it refers to usage not necessary users — but it marks a notable tipping point that has been inevitable for the past couple of years.

StatCounter — which bases its findings on 2.5 million websites that it claims generate more than 15 billion monthly page views — tracked the gradual converge of usage for the two operating systems over time. The chart highlights Microsoft’s failure to challenge with its ill-fated Windows Phone platform.