Microsoft ended regular support for Windows 7 a week ago, however, according to a new BitSight study, adoption by large companies still remains "almost universal". The term of support, which indicates that the operating system will no longer receive any type of official update if not paying, took place on January 14th and despite this, its use is made within about 60 thousand organizations.
The report does nothing but confirm, data in hand, what had long been suspected: several large companies have not yet migrated to Windows 10. About 90% of organizations with at least 100,000 employees still use Windows 7 on at least one system today; while as regards companies with less than a thousand employees, the adoption rate drops to 61%, while remaining fairly high.
Lack of diligence towards innovation? Lack of real advantages to using the most modern operating systems? The "admin" sins can be many, however on a large machine park it may not be easy to switch to a platform with new compatibility rules. The scale of the operations carried out and the use of processes linked to "legacy" technologies also often yield impossible to change overnight.
Statistics indicate that most of the largest companies in the world have delayed migration from Windows 7, however indicating the reasons is not easy because they could vary a lot. Some companies may find it difficult to switch to a newer platform due to technical problems (used apps and devices, sometimes very expensive, may not be compatible with Windows 10 or other operating systems), others due to lack of planning capacity , or unjustifiable costs.
The use of Windows 7 remains very high in the government and educational sectors: in the latter case 84% of the organizations mentioned in the study have at least one system with Windows 7; percentage falling to 82% for government authorities. As for the "dependence" on Windows 7, therefore, the rate of adoption of systems with Windows 7 in relation to all the systems used, one of the sectors most "at risk" is the medical one.
According to the report, 45% of medical organizations with more than 10,000 employees use Windows 7 on more than 25% of the total devices. The financial sector is also not doing well, with the percentage rising to 46% of organizations.
If on the one hand these numbers worry, on the other the study indicates that organizations are aware of the need to migrate to new platforms. Although many companies use Windows 7, the numbers linked to the "dependence" on the old operating system bode well. However, Windows 7 remains indispensable for many companies within systems used for necessary activities, whose work prevents having a direct path to migrate to Windows 10 without damage.