Windows 8 has largely been a no-show in the enterprise beyond pilots and limited rollouts.
According to data from SysAid Technologies, which provides IT service management software, 0.53 percent of its enterprise customers are running Windows 8 through April. Six months after the launch of Windows 7, SysAid saw 11.3 percent running that operating system. SysAid's data is based on 2,000 organizations globally.
Will Windows 8 garner any enterprise traction? | ZDNetThe reality is that Windows 8 may never garner enterprise interest. Among the moving parts:
- Companies have recently upgraded to Windows 7 and the enterprise upgrade cycle to that OS is still going.
- Windows 8 is a different animal and unless your company is looking to standardize PCs and tablets on one platform the value is questionable.
- Cloud computing negates the OS to a large degree since many corporate applications such as Salesforce.com, Workday and increasingly SAP and Oracle are accessed via a browser.
- When you consider that some companies inexplicably are running on Windows XP the next stop for enterprises may be Windows 9 or Windows 10.
- Bring your own device policies has diversified the OS base in companies so uber Windows upgrades may become less important.