During its fiscal year 2018 earnings call last week, Microsoft announced Windows 10 is thriving (among many performing products). The platform is enjoying growth in enterprise especially. Still, even though Win10 is three years old, Microsoft is not at its goal of 700 million machines running the platform. A big reason for that is Windows 7.
Yes, the decade old platform is still going strong and much used amongst businesses. However, support for Win7 will end in 2020. While that is two years away, Microsoft wants organizations to make the jump to Windows 10 now.
With that in mind, the company used last week’s Inspire event to make a plea. Microsoft wants partners to help convince businesses to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10.
“Because of those reasons and more it’s time to get to Windows 10 and modern commercial devices,” said Louisa Gauthier, product and marketing leader, Microsoft.
“Why is end of support so important for us? Because it is a huge opportunity to get your customers to modern. It is an opportunity estimated to be worth $100bn when you put together all the partner services, Office and solution opportunity over three years,” she added.
By leveraging partners to campaign on its behalf, Microsoft is hoping more people will switch. Campaigns will run until the end of this year. The company at least wants to tell customers who may not know their Windows 7 support is coming to an end.
As well as making a software jump, Gauthier urged companies to upgrade their devices too:
“If your PC and software are more than four years old then it’s time to move to a new Windows 10 device. Modern Windows devices are cheaper to manage and faster to run.”
Windows 10 Growth
During last week’s earnings call, Microsoft confirmed Windows 10 Pro increased 14 percent during the fourth quarter. More businesses are adopting the newer platform and leaving Windows 7 behind.
Earlier this month, Netmarketshare reported Windows 10 use accounted for 34.92% of all PC devices in June. The platform continues to move in the right direction. However, Windows 7 remains the most used PC platform and actually grew last month to 41.79% of all devices.
The good news for Microsoft is that near 42% of devices will have to upgrade to Windows 10 or lose support in 2020. In other words, the next two years could see Win10 see a huge user gain.
