Windows XP’s Death Could Save PC Market Says Analysts

Microsoft’s Windows XP has its support ended on April 14th 2014. As a result of this many business and home users will need to make the shift to a newer operating system. Those operating systems which will outlast XP include Windows 7 , which has mainstream support until January 13th 2015 as well as extended support (for business/enterprise users) until January 14th 2020. Windows Vista has already had mainstream support phased out and so will be ignored by most, though extended support runs till April 2017. Windows 8 though is obviously Microsoft’s biggest target for peoples’ upgrade. Microsoft hopes the end of XP will see users shift to Windows 8, instead of Windows 7, because it is now their primary focus. Windows 8 has mainstream support till 2018 and extended support till 2023.

Analysts Gartner believe that the end of Windows XP support next year will spur on increased PC sales. Considering around 37% of world PCs still run Windows XP, if all (or at least half) those users are to upgrade between now and April 2014 we should see a revival of PC sales.

“Our preliminary results indicate that this reduced market decline was attributed to solid growth in the professional market, Three of the major professional PC suppliers, HP, Dell and Lenovo, all registered better than U.S. average growth rate. The end of Windows XP support potentially drove the remaining PC refresh in the U.S. professional market.” Said Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst.

Image courtesy of Microsoft