Microsoft Windows 8 will only receive a 33 percent upgrade rate from corporate customers according to a recent survey conducted by Forrester Research .
The study gets even worse when 40 percent of surveyed potential customers said they have not even considered Windows 8 and 10 percent said they will skip the upgrade completely.
To put that number into comparison, only 28 percent of corporate buyers said they would skip Windows 7 when it was released in 2009. That survey found that two-thirds of businesses were preparing to upgrade once Windows 7 was released.
Early reviews of Windows 8 have generally found that the Metro UI is clunky when used with non-touchscreen based devices. Considering that most corporate customers are still not adopting to touchscreen based desktops and notebooks, the choice to avoid the upgrade makes sense.
In the meantime, the large number of Microsoft Windows 7 adopters that made the leap could simply be avoiding Windows 8 because of the millions of dollars already spent on Windows 7 installations.
The move away from Windows 8 by businesses explains why Microsoft’s first commercials for the Windows Slate tablets and Windows 8 have focused on a younger, more vibrant consumer user subset.
The low cost for a Windows 8 upgrade should still help Microsoft sell millions of software licenses to its various consumers around the world. The company’s focus on tablet devices and touchscreen displays could also help carve out a nice niche for Microsoft in a sector it has failed to dominate.
Will you be upgrading to Microsoft Windows 8 when the new operating system is made available on October 26.
