UPDATED 23:41 EDT / JULY 20 2016

NEWS

Windows 10 sees rapid adoption in the enterprise

Microsoft released Windows 10 one year ago, and immediately began an aggressive campaign to boost adoption as fast as it could. That campaign has proven to be a tad controversial, with Microsoft being accused of using deceptive tactics to foist the OS on scores of unsuspecting consumers. But despite the controversy Windows 10 has actually done rather well, and was running on over 300 million devices by March this year, according to Microsoft’s latest figures.

This success has seemingly carried over into the enterprise too, despite businesses typically being a little slower than consumers to adopt new technologies. According to a new survey of 866 IT pros who work in companies with at least 250 employees, conducted by Spiceworks Inc., 38 percent of enterprises have already adopted Windows 10 for at least some of their employees. That figure falls just short of an expected 40 percent adoption rate for the first year, Spiceworks said.

For the enterprise that’s actually a pretty incredible rate of adoption. Traditionally, most big firms like to avoid new version of Windows for the first year or two, and wait for the bugs and kinks to be ironed out.

But IT pros say they’re generally very pleased with Windows 10. They note that the OS is faster, has more advanced security features, and works better with Office 365.

However, Windows 10 has gone down less well with employees. Some 69 percent of IT pros surveyed said employees still prefer using the tried and tested Windows 7.

“We’re rolling out Windows 10 on our new devices and upgrading a majority of our existing devices, and the biggest benefit so far has been the overall speed and performance of the OS,” said Joe Kinne, IT manager at Prime Electric, in a statement. “At first, our end users were reluctant to give up a system they already know and like, but they quickly caught on and adapted really well once they began to try the new features and realize the improvements.”

Still, Microsoft’s celebrations will be muted somewhat by the news that IT pros at the 62 percent of companies which have yet to adopt Windows 10 say they have no immediate plans to upgrade. Instead, they indicated will only switch to Windows 10 when they have a pressing reason to do so, saying that Windows 7 works just fine. As such, we can expect to see a great deal of enterprises cling on to the older OS for a few years to come.

That realization helps to explain why Microsoft is no longer on track to hit its stated goal of getting Windows 10 installed on one billion devices by 2018.

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