{"id":14533,"date":"2013-05-07T09:31:23","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T08:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14533"},"modified":"2013-05-07T09:31:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T08:31:23","slug":"windows-8-sales-below-the-norm-but-will-they-spike-in-fy2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14533","title":{"rendered":"Windows 8 Sales Below The Norm, But Will They Spike in FY2014?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few people have started to figure out that Windows 8 sales are down.  It\u2019s clear that retail sales are down.  Annuity licensing agreements (you always<\/em> buy the latest volume license version and can choose to downgrade, e.g. Windows 7) and the cheap upgrade offers have boosted numbers, but the 20 million\/month norm appears to have slid quite a bit.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to get into the whys of this; that\u2019s been talked to death.<\/p>\n

I am wondering if we will see a reverse course caused by business customers.  Windows XP end of support is coming in April of next year.  Businesses, who have mostly clung to Windows XP like a zombie Charlton Heston grips his gun, are starting to look at upgrades to Windows 7.  <\/p>\n

There is a general misunderstanding with enterprise licensing.  Not every company has an annuity agreement such as OVS (SMEs) or an Enterprise Agreement (EA \u2013 larger enterprises) that includes Software Assurance (SA \u2013 one of the benefits is upgrade rights).  And even if they do, they will be choosey about what is included: maybe they\u2019ll include a Core CAL or an Enterprise CAL for servers, but they won\u2019t get licensing for the desktop OS.  That might be because they\u2019ve been happy with Windows XP and stuck with the OEM license that came with the PC.  Some of those PCs have Windows 7 stickers (licenses) and some don\u2019t.  My experience is that business PCs hang around for a lot longer than most retail PCs, well after their hardware support expires.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s summarise for a moment:<\/p>\n