Windows 7 to Windows 10: Two-thirds of PCs switched over, but businesses want to go faster
Businesses are getting on with their Windows 10 migration projects, but they aren't moving fast enough for some.
Windows 10
According to a survey by security company 1E, around two-thirds of PCs in business have already switched over to Windows 10 -- a figure that was pretty uniform across a range of sectors. It's also roughly in line with other surveys and data points about Windows 10 migration that have marked the six months remaining until Windows 7 goes out of extended support in January next year.
No extended support means no more fixes and patches unless your organisation is willing to pay for them, and staying secure is one clear reason to upgrade: nearly nine out of ten businesses surveyed said that security was a key factor.
However, just over half of the 600 UK and US IT decision makers surveyed said they felt their Windows 10 migration project was not going fast enough.
"A main obstacle to the transition appears to be the growth in remote work, which 77% agree is creating security concerns specifically around the challenge of updates. The extraordinarily high rates of concern around the energy sector for remote work (92%) are unsurprising, since, from oil rigs to oil fields, from tankers to trucks, it has long been an intrinsically 'remote' industry," said 1E.
Reaching those last few machines might be hard too, as the IT execs surveyed admitted they only had control over half of the devices that accessed their networks.
Leaving Windows 7 also means moving to the new Windows as a Service model, which sees new features and bug fixes arriving on new regular basis rather than in monolithic upgrades every year or two. But for companies used to cautiously testing new software before introducing it more widely, that's going to be a significant shift in how they rollout new software -- especially as they are already being bombarded with patches to test from other vendors. On average, respondents said about two-thirds of the software in the organisation -- including operating systems, patches, and apps -- were up to date.