Windows 7 to be on 42 percent of PCs by year's end

Shawn Knight

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Windows 7 is on track to become the most popular operating system by the end of 2011, according to research firm Gartner. The current-generation Windows OS will find a home on 42 percent of PCs and will ship installed on 94 percent of new computers sold worldwide.

Windows 7 adoption in enterprise markets has been somewhat slow but deployment is expected to pick up in most markets as we move towards the end of the year. Other volatile regions are anticipating a slower deployment for various economic and political reasons.

"Steady improvements in IT budgets in 2010 and 2011 are helping to accelerate the deployment of Windows 7 in enterprise markets in the U.S. and Asia/Pacific, where Windows 7 migrations started in large volume from 4Q10," said Annette Jump, research director at Gartner. "However, the economic uncertainties in Western Europe, political instability in selected Middle East and Africa (MEA) countries and the economic slowdown in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 will likely lead to slightly late and slow deployment for Windows 7 across those regions."

Gartner believes that Windows 7 will be the last Microsoft OS that gets deployed through traditional means. Within the next five years, they suspect that many organizations will move toward cloud computing and virtualization to deliver desktop environments to employees.

The retail version of Windows 7 launched in October 2009 and became the highest grossing pre-order in Amazon history. The successor to Windows Vista, 7 has increased in ownership rather quickly in less than two years. As of two months ago, Windows 7 was installed on one in four computers.

The adoption of Windows 7 has caused the continual decline of Windows XP, which fell below the 50 percent mark last month. Microsoft will continue to support the aging OS until April 8, 2014 when all support and updates will be terminated. Windows Vista usage was down to only 9 percent as of July 2011.

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Well lets see........

1. Quit supporting XP (which consumers liked)
2. Force everyone into Vista (which a majority of consumers didnt like)
3. Introduce Windows 7 (an opportunity to leave Vista and low and behold.....its a great operating system)
4. Your options now are.......stay with Vista or go to Windows 7.

Is this really newsworthy? Seems to me, that it was kind of a no-brainer. lol.....
 
I helped contribute to the numbers. Just got Windows 7 Professional x64 on my desktop.
 
And then there was 8.

I think Microsoft would be better off if they rebrand Windows 8 as a tablet OS.
 
My contribution:
1 - Windows 7 Home Premium (Pre-ordered Retail Upgrade)
1 - Windows 7 Home Premium (Family Pack Retail Upgrade)
2 - Windows 7 Professional (64-bit OEM Disk)

I only wish I've seen the last of XP and Vista.
 
Sadly, I've still be unable to purchase a legal copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, I will do it at the same time I get an SSD and so far, I've been struggling to find an SSD that I feel is worth the coin :S
 
I only use Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit and 64-bit on desktops and laptops. Tablets nope. Leave that to Android for now. Until Windows 8 Tablet OS version appears on the market.
 
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