Windows 10 was released to the world on July 29, and since then, it has enjoyed a fast rise of installations, exceeding 120 million in just over three months. With this in consideration, Gartner Inc., a company which measures technology records and insights, predicts that this latest OS by Microsoft is set to become the most widely installed version of Windows ever, following in Windows XP and 7"s footsteps.
The company sees Microsoft"s free upgrade offer to Windows 7 and 8.1 users as the core reason behind this projection. "In the consumer market, a free upgrade coupled with broad legacy device support and automatic over-the-air upgrades ensures that there will be tens of millions of users familiar with the operating system (OS) before the end of 2015," said Steve Kleynhans, vice president of research at Gartner. It should be noted, however, that the company also saw this upgrade offer as a reason for the continuous slump of PC shipments.
As for enterprises, the firm predicts that 50% of them will have started Windows 10 adoption by January 2017. "For enterprises, we expect that implementation will be significantly more rapid than that seen with Windows 7 six years ago," according to Kleynhans.
Moreover, the company sees other factors for migration to the latest OS. One of these is Windows 7"s End of Support, which is due by January 2020. Another is high compatibility with Windows 7 programs and devices, and the repressed demand for tablets and 2-in-1 computers.
Gartner also predicts that by 2018, touchscreens will be shipped on one-third of all notebook computers, seeing this become a default feature for such devices, as costs for touch decreases.
Source: Gartner via Windows Central
Editor"s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the release date of Windows 10 was June 29.