Gartner has released several predictions covering ‘endpoint’ technology in a new report (log-in required) (http://tinyurl.com/o79fs8u).
The most interesting forecast, for us, is that 30% of businesses will spend more on displays than on PCs by 2018. This trend will grow due to workers demanding more screen real estate for their workspaces, leading to increasing sales of high-resolution monitors.
By 2018, touch will be more than 30% of all notebooks. Gartner expects that, as the price of adding touch falls, the technology will become more normalised as a default feature for these products. Pricing is expected to become more competitive in the second half of 2016, as manufacturing processes continue to improve and Windows 10 migration planning starts to accelerate. Which brings us to…
Migration to Windows 10 will be the fastest yet. The OS is poised to become the most widely-installed version of Windows ever, says Gartner, predicting that more than 50% of enterprises will have begun Windows 10 deployments by January 2017. Adoption was boosted in the consumer market by free upgrades, legacy device support and over-the-air updates.
Several factors are driving migration; specifically, awareness of Windows 7’s end-of-life support in January 2020; compatibility with Windows 7 applications and devices; and pent-up demand for tablet and hybrid device rollouts. The end result is that many businesses are planning to begin Windows 10 pilots in the first half of 2016, and to broaden these later in the year.
