Security improvements primary reason for Windows 10 migration

Migration to Windows 10 is expected to be faster than previous OS adoption, according to a survey by Gartner. The survey showed that 85 percent of enterprises will have started Windows 10 deployments by the end of 2017.

Between September and December of 2016, Gartner conducted a survey in six countries (the U.S., the U.K., France, China, India and Brazil) of 1,014 respondents who were involved in decisions for Windows 10 migration.

“Organizations recognize the need to move to Windows 10, and the total time to both evaluate and deploy Windows 10 has shortened from 23 months to 21 months between surveys that Gartner did during 2015 and 2016,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “Large businesses are either already engaged in Windows 10 upgrades or have delayed upgrading until 2018. This likely reflects the transition of legacy applications to Windows 10 or replacing those legacy applications before Windows 10 migration takes place.”

Reasons driving Windows 10 migration

When asked what reasons are driving their migration to Windows 10, 49 percent of respondents said that security improvements were the main reason for the migration. The second most-often-named reason for Windows 10 deployment was cloud integration capabilities (38 percent). However, budgetary approval is not straightforward.

“Windows 10 is not perceived as an immediate business-critical project; it is not surprising that one in four respondents expect issues with budgeting,” said Mr. Atwal.

“Respondents’ device buying intentions have significantly increased as organizations saw third- and fourth-generation products optimized for Windows 10 with longer battery life, touchscreens and other Windows 10 features. The intention to purchase convertible notebooks increased as organizations shifted from the testing and pilot phases into the buying and deployment phases,” said Meike Escherich, principal research analyst at Gartner.