A new study out by Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, shows that businesses are adopting Windows 10 faster than they did Windows 7. The study shows that 85 percent of enterprises will have started Windows 10 deployments by the end of 2017 and that migration to Windows 10 is expected to be faster than the shift from Windows XP to Windows 7 in years past (via ZDNet.)

Done between September and December 2016, the study covered 1,014 respondents in the U.S., the U.K., France, China, India and Brazil who are involved in making decisions for Windows 10 migration. Specifically, when asked why they would migrate to Windows 10, 49% of respondents said that security improvements were the main reason for the migration. 38% of respondents, meanwhile, cited Windows 10’s cloud integration capabilities, the second most reason for Windows 10 deployments. Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner explains:

“Organizations 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.”

In similar fashion, Meike Escherich, principal research analyst at Gartner, explained, “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.”

Though one study done by Spiceworks holds that Windows 7 still the dominant OS for businesses, other recent reports from the research and data insight firm, CCS Insight show 86% of firms have stated that they would upgrade to Windows 10 within 3-4 years. Windows 10, nonetheless, offers up enhanced security features such as Device Guard, Secure Boot, and biometric authentication.

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