Windows 10 could soon be coming to your work computer, which is good news for Microsoft
Business Insider
There are signs that Windows 10 could be a success with them.
On Monday, Microsoft announced that more than 76% of its enterprise customers are at least testing Windows 10 ("in active pilots," as Microsoft says).
22 million businesses and education customers are actually using Windows 10, the company says. It's not clear how many of those are businesses and how many of them are schools, but in November, Microsoft said that 14 million Windows 10 devices were up and running on enterprise computers.
Most analysts expected businesses to get serious about upgrading their employees to Windows 10 in 2016, and if 76% of them are in pilots, that's certainly a sign that things are on track.
Why Windows at work matters for Microsoft
Getting businesses to run Windows 10 is important to Microsoft for all sorts of reasons.
Unlike consumers who were offered a free upgrade (pestered might be a better word), businesses aren't completely off the hook when it comes to paying for Windows. Most of them can upgrade to Windows 10 for "free" because they've already bought enterprise contracts that allow them to use any supported version of Windows. But they do have to pay Microsoft periodic license fees for every PC running Windows so they can keep running the most up-to-date and advanced business version.
Plus, when businesses are using the latest version of the PC operating system, that encourages them to upgrade all their other Microsoft business software to current versions, whether that's Office 365, Windows Server, or Microsoft's SQL Server database, and those upgrades will usually incur additional fees.
It's true that Microsoft is slowly weaning itself from its Windows empire, and encouraging businesses to rent all of their Microsoft business software from Microsoft's cloud, whether that's Microsoft Office 365, SQL Server, or Microsoft Dynamics (its competitor to Salesforce).
When businesses use its cloud, Microsoft makes money even if a company's employees don't use Windows PCs.
But Microsoft makes far more money if it can keep its business customers in its Windows ecosystem. And that really does begin with the PC.
NOW WATCH: The key to making new habits stick
- US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- 9 health benefits of drinking sugarcane juice in summer
- 10 benefits of incorporating almond oil into your daily diet
- From heart health to detoxification: 10 reasons to eat beetroot
- Why did a NASA spacecraft suddenly start talking gibberish after more than 45 years of operation? What fixed it?
- ICICI Bank shares climb nearly 5% after Q4 earnings; mcap soars by ₹36,555.4 crore
- Nothing Phone (2a) blue edition launched
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market