I have read so many posts about this recently, it’s making my head hurt. I get the sentiment – a popular OS is going end of life, so it’s a good opportunity to coax new people over to Linux.

However, I really don’t think this is going to happen. Why? Because I think that the vast majority of Windows 7 users who are out there are probably in the enterprise space.

Think about it, Microsoft offered free upgrades to Windows for ages – like 2 years or something. Not only that, but it nagged and nagged and nagged for people to upgrade.

I image most small to medium size businesses (SMB) took advantage of this offer too, as Windows licensing can be pretty expensive.

That just leaves the enterprise space that usually have thousands of users, all using some crappy piece of internally developed software that is limping along and requires an older operating system.

Because of this, enterprises will happily pay for extended support for Windows 7 until such time as they’re ready to upgrade to Windows 10.

You see? Linux isn’t getting a look in here. The home user market have mostly upgraded for free, as have the SMB market. Enterprises will never move to Linux because…well, it’s just not the done thing, is it?

I love Linux, but I’m sorry, I really don’t see Windows 7 users migrating to Linux purely because support has ended. 🙁