Tag: windows 10

PC sales about to pick up

Posted on September 26, 2018 by - News

The seven years of lean times in the PC industry will be over next year as Windows 10 adoption increases, according to technicolour dreamcoat analysts at Canalys.

The analyst claims that a “slight recovery” next year will see shipments of desktops, notebooks and two-in-ones edge up 0.3 percent. Hardly time for the seven fat cows, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Canalys chief analyst Alastair Edwards said: “Windows 10 refresh will continue to be the main driver of commercial demands for PCs in 2019.

“This will be buoyed by strong economic performance and business spend in the US, the largest PC market in the world, as well as a continued global push to upgrade on the back of heightened IT security concerns. Furthermore, 2019 is likely to bring about an easing of component supply constraints that have recently plagued the industry. Intel and its partners have admitted that slight supply of 14-nanometer processors will delay PC shipments this year, while DRAM shortages will start to ease towards the end of 2018, with the effects to be felt next year.”

Canalys said that the channel will see the success it has found with Windows, both through sales and services, continue for a period of time.

However, it warned that this will not last forever, claiming that the spell could come to an end in the first half of next year. Canalys added that the most “successful partners” will be the ones that build out managed desktop and subscription services.

This trend has been supported by two recent vendor announcements, with both Microsoft and HP launching desktop-as-a-service offerings.

Wannacry means no more tears for resellers

Posted on July 25, 2017 by - News

141022153424-sleep-woman-clock-story-topThe rise of ransomware attacks is just what corporations needed to finally get off their Windows XP machines and upgrade.

According to the latest numbers from Spiceworks XP is still running on 11 percent of desktops and laptops but the penetration rate has dropped fairly quickly in just the last quarter.

Two years after Windows 10 was launched, the analysis of what is being used out in the market indicates that 60 percent of global organisations have adopted Microsoft’s latest offering.

This means that after hanging on to XP for grim death, SMEs and corporations have finally realised that it is a false economy and that they are leaving themselves open to ransomware attacks.

The SME community has been the most supportive with 67 percent of those firms with 100 to 500 staff moving to the OS.

Spiceworks senior technology analyst Peter Tsai said that widespread ransomware attacks such as WannaCry and Petrwrap have put businesses under pressure to upgrade unsupported operating systems, such as Windows XP and Vista, and move to more secure systems like Windows 10.

“And while Windows XP is still running in some businesses, it’s evident that more companies are beginning to recognise the security risks and prioritise upgrades in order to better secure their networks”, he added.

Spiceworks found that in the last three months the penetration levels of Windows XP fell by 10 percent. Windows 7 remains the most popular OS but 10 continues to grow.

Security features are the top reason for Windows 10 upgrade

Posted on April 27, 2017 by - News, Products

magritte-windowThe killer reason why companies are upgrading to Windows 10 is the improved security functions, according to beancounters at Gartner Group.

The analyst outfit said that it took a long time for Windows 10 to start driving PC sales but the channel has witnessed the impact of the OS upgrades triggering hardware sales since the last quarter of 2016.

Gartner noting that the adoption of Windows 10 is faster than previous OS versions and the traditional refresh cycles are shortening. Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner said: “Organisations recognize the need to move to Windows 10, and the total time to both evaluate and deploy Windows 10 has shortened from 23 months to 21 months between surveys that Gartner did during 2015 and 2016.

“Large businesses are either already engaged in Windows 10 upgrades or have delayed upgrading until 2018. This likely reflects the transition of legacy applications to Windows 10 or replacing those legacy applications before Windows 10 migration takes place”.

The analyst house has found that security improvements are the top attraction for those migrating as well as the cloud integration capabilities offered by the OS.

But there are also technical problems with some users being driven to upgrade to make sure they can use the latest desktop and server processors. Meike Escherich, principal research analyst at Gartner said: “Respondents’ device buying intentions have significantly increased as organizations saw third- and fourth-generation products optimized for Windows 10 with longer battery life, touchscreens and other Windows 10 features. The intention to purchase convertible notebooks increased as organizations shifted from the testing and pilot phases into the buying and deployment phases.”

Figures from last month from Netmarketshare revealed that Windows 10 holds a 25 percent market share, which is still lagging behind the 49 percentheld by Windows 7. The number of users still using XP and 8.1 has now dipped below 20 percent

Commercial sector helps PC growth

Posted on November 14, 2016 by - News

20120313_InformaticaThe commercial sector has been a PC sales hotspot helping the market deliver low growth in third quarter, at least in Western Europe.

Bean counters from Context have been adding up the numbers, and dividing by their shoe size and decided that the commercial sector has been a growth area. While the back to school windows for the PC market have been disappointing, commercial orders grew to cover up the problems as efficiently as woodchip wallpaper.

Context said that most of the third quarter  was used by distribution to clear PC inventory, using special promotions as a tool, to get things ready for the fourth quarter.

Sales across Western Europe for third quarter came in at 0.8 per cent up, year-on-year, with notebooks improving by 3.5 per cent as desktops continued to decline with a 5.9 per cent fall. The UK saw third quarter PC volume growth beat the overall Western European market, coming in at 1.2 per cent in the third quarter.

Context said there were reasons to be optimistic about the future, with Windows 10 having an impact. However, it warned that Brexit would have an impact on pricing as would the uncertainty caused by the political situation.

The business customer base was the one that kept firing with sales up by 3.3 per cent, with notebooks driving that performance.

So far Windows 10 had not had much of an impact, but Context saw some spending as a result of upgrading to run the latest Voleware.  This is expected to filter through this quarter and the first half of next year.

Marie-Christine Piggott, senior analyst at Context said that there are expectations in the business space of continued, moderate growth at the end of 2016 thanks to year-end projects and Windows 10 commercial sales will also begin to pick up at the end of the year,” said.

There is little hope for the Consumer side. Customers were moving away from the traditional laptops and PCs preferring to splash out on convertibles, Chromebooks and gaming PCs.

Business customers also embraced detachable with that segment rising by 227 per cent year-on-year to go above 250,000 units through distribution.

The third quarter was great for vendors. HP which now commands a third of the units going through distribution. Asus also saw volumes increase by nine per cent  to gain a 13 per cent  share and Dell was also improving, Context said.

 

Window 10 loses market share

Posted on October 6, 2016 by - News

windows-10-technical-preview-turquoiseSoftware King of the World Microsoft might actually be losing market share on its Windows 10 operating system.

Recently, Vole bragged that Windows 10 was running on 400 million devices, but the operating system’s market share lost ground  in September in a move that could worry Microsoft’s partners.

StatCounter Global Stats has Windows 10 at 24.42 percent desktop OS market share for September, down just .01 percent from its August share. Netmarketshare said Windows 10 dropped from August’s 22.99 percent to a September reading of 22.53 percent.

StatCounter has recently recorded a surge in “Unknown” desktop operating systems, up from 4.06 per cent in June to 6.42 percent in September.

Windows 7 remains in top position in all three of the data sources. StatCounter clocked it at 34.9 percent and Netmarketshare gave it 48.27 percent market share, up 1.02 points over August.

XP’s has fallen to 9.11 percent on Netmarketshare and 5.44 percent StatCounter.

Windows 8.1 is between six and eight percent market share and Vista is nowhere to be found.

It would indicate that while Windows 10 has done well in the consumer market, it has not been widely adopted by business yet. This would make it a harder sell for sellers in the business channel. That’s an awful lot of percents.

Microsoft thinks it knows what businesses really really want

Posted on October 22, 2015 by - News

surface-rtSoftware king of the world Microsoft has been asking its enterprise customers how it can improve the adoption of Surface tablets and Windows 10.

Writing in its Bog, Vole said that it had been chatting to customers who made large global footprints and discovered that the service, management and support options were pinching.

“Many told us they wanted to buy Surface from one partner, in one transaction, and have devices deployed all over the world with a single support and warranty SLA,” the blog says.

This is apparently the reason why Vole announced that Dell and HP will now resell Surface tablets and bring their enterprise-grade support offerings to the devices.

Microsoft has added two new additions to the Surface Enterprise Initiative to speed the adoption of Surface tablets and Windows 10.

Starting at the beginning of 2016, Vole will bring in a new “Microsoft Complete for Enterprise” warranty. This has four elements that the firm says its larger enterprise customers have asked for including the ability to pool warranty claims by company versus individual devices.

Microsoft will allow warranty claims against non-bootable devices. It will bring in rapid replace processing and an on-boarding centre to ensure a premium within the first 30 days.

Vole will assist IT staff to get setup with warranty and support processes as well as provide online training for their employees to get productive as fast as possible.

In addition to this there is the Business Device Trade-In Program.

“Many customers have told us that they want to upgrade to Surface and Windows 10, but have invested in devices and need to maximise the value they receive from those assets,” the blog said.

“With the Business Device Trade-in Program we make it simple. This is different from other trade-in offers in that it is a permanent program for business customers, rather than a limited time promotion.”

With 24 hour quotes, prepaid shipping labels and secure data wipe, business customers can trade their used business laptops, tablets, and phones for credit towards the purchase of new Surface devices.

This offer will be available in the coming weeks to business customers in the US, Canada, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Soon it will be rolled out to Australia, France, Germany and the UK.

Windows 10 shatters all records

Posted on September 2, 2015 by - News

magritte-windowIn just a month Windows 10 has captured more than five percent  market share.

According to the latest figures from Net Applications, Windows 10 has already been installed on over 75 million PCs. Vole wants a billion devices running Windows 10 “in two to three years,” though that includes not just PCs, but smartphones, consoles and IoT devices.

Windows 10 had 0.39 percent  market share in July, and gained 4.82 percent age points to hit 5.21 percent  in August.

Windows 8 slipped 0.21 percent age points to 2.56 percent, while Windows 8.1 fell 1.71 points to 11.39 percent. Together, they owned 13.95 percent of the market at the end of August, down from 15.86 percent at the end of July.  Windows 8 and 8.1 never gained more than 20 percent market share mark (they peaked at 16.45 per cent in May), and with Windows 10 now available, they never will.

There’s lots of percents in this story.

Windows 7 passed the 60 percent market share mark in June but in in August dropped 3.08 points to 57.67 percent.

Windows 7 will remain the most popular OS for at least this year. Windows 7 overtook Windows XP in September 2012.

Windows Vista meanwhile slipped 0.02 points to 1.82 percent. Windows XP somehow managed to gain 0.40 points to 12.14 percent. The free upgrade to Windows 10 doesn’t apply to Vista or XP.

Windows gained a bit of share in August, up 0.18 points to 90.84 percent. Mac OS X and Linux in turn suffered minor losses, losing 0.13 points to 7.53 percent  and 0.05 points to 1.63 percent , respectively.

Reseller leaks Windows 10 pricing and launch date

Posted on June 1, 2015 by - News

windows-10-technical-preview-turquoiseMicrosoft reseller Newegg accidently leaked the pricing and release date of Windows 10.

Windows 10 will be released to hardware makers on August 31, according to a product listing at Newegg.com.

The new version of Microsoft’s widely used operating system will be delivered to original equipment manufacturers on August 31, according to listings at Newegg.com, which is also taking pre-orders for the software. The Home edition will cost hardware makers $109, while the Professional version will cost $149, according to the listings.

The exact release date for Windows 10 had been a closely guarded secret. Microsoft said in March that Windows 10 would launch this sometime this summer, and while developers hoped for something more definitive during the Build developer conference last month, the company was still mum.

This means that consumers should have Windows 10 in their hands before the end of summer. We should point out that this is the second time that Newegg jumped the gun. It leaked price details and a release date for on Windows 8 in 2012.

Windows 11 codenamed Redstone

Posted on April 8, 2015 by - News

redstoneblock1With Windows 10 coming to market sometime this summer, or possibly later, Microsoft is already starting to work on the next update for the OS and has been devoting brain time to what to call it.

The codename for the project, which will be ready in 2016, will be ‘Redstone’, a popular item in the recently acquired game, Minecraft.

Not much is known about Microsoft’s plans for Redstone but the company has now entered the planning stages of the update.

Microsoft  has been using minecraft and some of its other games to provide codenames. There have already seen several names from the Halo series spring to life, like the Spartan web browser.  Cortana also comes from the game and not a clapped out car teens used to drive around in the 1980s.

Windows 10 is an overhaul of the entire platform, so Redstone will likely be relatively minor in comparison, but other than the name that is all we have on it.

Windows Server is expected to be released in 2016, so Redstone could possibly be related to this project as well. But if you know that when Vole is talking about Redstone, you know it is going to be about Windows 11.

 

Windows 10: Summer is a coming in

Posted on March 18, 2015 by - News

windows-10-technical-preview-turquoiseWe’ve already written how Microsoft is to give away Windows 10 to Chinese users but senior VP Terry Myers has revealed other elements that he hopes will give his company an edge on the operating systems front.

Speaking at a Windows technical conference in China, Myers said the firm will roll Windows 10 out this summer in 190 countries and 111 languages.

He showed off a feature called Windows Hello that supports biometric authentication rather than the usual typed in passwords. Hello will use facial recognition, iris recognition or fingerprints to unlock devices using the Intel RealSense F200 sensor.

He also said there will be a new version of Windows specifically aimed at the internet of things (IoT) market – and that version of Windows will be free and see applications in ATMs, ultrasound machines, and gateways.

Microsoft has signed deals with a number of organisations including the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Qualcomm, Intel and others.

Myerson also announced the Qualcomm DragonBoard 410C which is a Windows 10 developer board with integrated wi-fi, Bluetooth and GPS, and uses a smartphone style Snapdragon 410 chipset.

He claimed that Windows 10 is the only operating system that has a reach across such a broad family of hardware.

 

Microsoft gives the Chinese free Windows 10

Posted on March 18, 2015 by - News

eclipse-chinaSoftware king of the world Microsoft has decided that the best way to stop the Chinese pirating its Windows 10 operating system is to give it to them.

Microsoft has decided to push into the heavily pirated Chinese consumer computing market this summer by offering free upgrades to Windows 10 to all Windows users, regardless of whether they are running genuine copies of the software.

The big idea is to get legitimate versions of VoleWare onto machines of the hundreds of millions of Windows users in China. Recent studies show that three-quarters of all PC software is not properly licensed there.

Terry Myerson, who runs Microsoft’s operating systems unit, announced the plan at the WinHEC technology conference in Shenzhen, China.

Microsoft will upgrade all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10. The plan is to “re-engage” with the hundreds of millions of users of Windows in China, he said, without elaboration.

Windows 10 would be released globally sometime “this summer”. That is the first time Microsoft has put a time frame on the release, although it has been expected in autumn.

Microsoft said in January it would offer free upgrades to Windows 10 for users of Windows 7 or later in an attempt to hold onto users and make up for lost revenue by selling services such as Office over the Internet.

Microsoft is working with Lenovo to roll out Windows 10 in China to current Windows users, Myerson said.

It also is offering Windows 10 through security company Qihoo 360 Technology and Tencent Holdings, China’s biggest social networking company, which will build a Windows 10 app that will work on smartphones and PCs for its popular QQ gaming and messaging service. QQ has more than 800 million users.

Lenovo said in a statement that it will make phones running Windows software, available through China Mobile, sometime later this year.

 

Goodbye, Microsoft Internet Exploder (sic)

Posted on March 17, 2015 by - News

windows-10-technical-preview-turquoiseIt’s fair to say that Microsoft’s browser – Internet Explorer – has not been the favourite browser in the world.

But Microsoft has now confirmed that it will put IE in the background when it releases Windows 10 – that’s not until autumn this year.

Instead of pushing Internet Explorer – which has landed it in a lot of bother with government regulatory authorities, Microsoft is to produce a leaner meaner browser which is codenamed Spartan.

Microsoft got into trouble with different governments because IE was bundled with its operating system.

According to web site the Verge, Microsoft won’t kill off Internet Explorer completely but will supplement it with Spartan.

People got so fed up with Internet Explorer in the past that many opted for alternative browsers such as Opera or Firefox.

Microsoft is eager to show that under the stewardship of newly fledged CEO Satya Nadella, things ain’t what they used to be.

Although there’s no official launch date for Windows 10, the perception in the supply chain is that if it comes out before autumn, it will be something of a miracle.

Ballmer is still excited about Microsoft

Posted on February 16, 2015 by - News

ballmerThe shy and retired former Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer has been quietly supporting Microsoft’s new Windows 10 software in his usual understated manner.

Last week after the Windows 10 event Ballmer expressed his continued love for the company, despite the fact he was forbidden to take to the stage and bounce anymore.

For those with memories like goldfish, Ballmer was chief executive at Microsoft for 14 years before Satya Nadella took over last year. In August, Ballmer resigned from Microsoft’s board, to concentrate on a basketball team he had bought so he could have something to shout at.

Nadella appears to be making all the sorts of changes that shareholders want, but Ballmer was not delivering.  However Steve does not seem to be flinging chairs about now that Nadella is undoing all his hard work.

He made one of his rare tweets saying that:

“Today made all MSFT employees proud, customers excited and shareholders salivate. The wave of windows 10 hw, services OS rocks. I love MSFT.”

It seems like Ballmer is just as excited about the reborn Microsoft as he always was. Still he does have a lot of shares in the outfit, so we guess he still has to be.

 

Windows on subscription gets closer

Posted on February 10, 2015 by - News

windows-10-technical-preview-turquoiseMicrosoft seems to be moving closer to the idea that its Windows operating system will be sold using a subscription as a service.

The subscription, much like Office 365, will be paid once a year but appeared to have been abandoned when Microsoft announced that Windows 10 will be free, for anyone upgrading from Windows 7 or 8.

Even though Microsoft has not fully detailed its Windows 10 pricing strategy, it recently filed for a trademark for ‘Windows 365’, which adds a bit of fuel to the subscription based version of Windows.

A trademark might have been lodged to stop other people using it, but when Microsoft does announce a subscription version of Windows, ‘Windows 365″ would likely be the name.

So far, there has been no sign that Redmond is rushing to release ‘Windows 365’ in the immediate future, as it is pushing Windows 10 at every possible instance. For now, know that Microsoft has claimed this branding right, it could be something seen in the future.

 

Notebook sales plummeted in January

Posted on February 9, 2015 by - News

notebooksMajor and minor vendors saw precipitous falls in shipments of notebooks  in January.
That’s according to Digitimes Research, which said HP saw its shipments fall by 45 percent and Lenovo fall by 30 percent compared to the previous month.
It wasn’t just the big names that suffered – the original design manufacturers – including giant Compal – saw its shipments fall too.
However, Compal supplies machines to both HP and Lenovo, the market research firm said.
Microsoft has been forced by incursions from Chromebooks to slash its licensing rate – but these machines are not immune to a more general decline in notebooks.
The news may be bad for HP and Lenovo but could be good news for people looking for notebook bargains – most of the machines sitting in warehouses are aimed at home use.
It’s still not entirely clear how Microsoft will approach the thorny matter of Windows 10 when that’s launched in the third or fourth quarter of this year.  It also hasn’t disclosed how many different varieties of Windows 10 it will offer at launch.
There is some sentiment that people are holding off buying notebooks until they have a clearer picture of what is going to emerge from Redmond.