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Forrester: Windows 7 powers 1 out of every 10 business PCs

While Windows 7 is running on only one out of every 10 PCs at North American and European businesses,that percentage will grow considerably in the coming year, according to a new report from Forrester Research.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

While Windows 7 is running on only one out of every 10 PCs at North American and European businesses,that percentage will grow considerably in the coming year, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

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Between June and August of this year, Forrester surveyed more than 2,300 2,321 IT execs in the U.S., Canada, France, German and the UK. These individuals represented both small/mid-size business and enterprise companies with two or more employee

Forrester found that one year after Windows 7's launch (which happened on October 22, 2009), XP is still powering 75 percent of business PCs, compared to the ten percent currently powered by Windows 7.

Microsoft officials said just over a week ago that the company had sold 240 million Windows 7 license in the first year the product was available. That figure included sales to both business and consumer customers..

But as businesses refresh their hardware mix, adding new PCs, the Windows 7 business adoption rate will grow. At present, Windows 7 is deployed on 31 percent of brand-new PCs purchased by business users surveyed by Forrester. And the research firm is predicting that within a year, that number will grow to 83 percent.

Forrester also found via its latest survey that 90 percent of business contacted expect to migrate to Windows 7 eventually.

"Last year when we fielded a similar survey, only 7% of firms said they planned to deploy Windows 7 within the next 12 months or that they had already begun. This number has skyrocketed to 46% of firms now reporting that they have already begun or will begin deploying Windows 7 within the next 12 months," the Forrester researchers said.

An additional 42 percent of firms surveyed said they were planning to deploy Windows 7 in more than 12 months. Another 10 percent have not yet looked into Windows 7 enough to make a prediction and another one percent claim to be considering "alternatives" to Windows 7, including Windows 8, Mac and/or Linux.

A full copy of Forrester's "Updated 2010: Windows 7 Commercial Adoption Outlook" report is available for purchase from the Forrester site.

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