Microsoft seeks to win over corporate market with new Windows 10 OS
Wed 1 Oct 2014
Microsoft has announced plans to gear its new Windows 10 operating system towards enterprise customers in an effort to recapture dwindling corporate adoption following its Windows 8 mis-hit.
Unveiled yesterday by Windows executive vice president Terry Myerson, the new software will be made compatible across a wide range of devices including smartphones, tablets, and PCs.
The return of the Start button was warmly welcomed back after its disappearance from Windows 8. The software will also offer an up-to-date list of notifications from the users’ favourite applications, presented as resizable tiles in a similar fashion to the touch-centric tiled interface of Windows 8.
Microsoft suggested that Windows 10 needed to encourage corporate adoption following the low sales and lack of confidence in the operating system’s previous model.
“It’s extremely important for Microsoft to get Windows 10 right,” said David Johnson, Microsoft analyst at Forrester.
“Windows 8 is only being offered to employees by about one in five organisations right now. Windows 7 is still the de facto standard for enterprise in the desktop environment.
“For Microsoft to continue to be able to get the best and latest technology in the hands of the enterprise workforce all over the world, it has to have a vehicle to do that – and Windows 10 is its best shot,” he told the BBC.
Johnson also added that the re-introduction of the Start Menu is essential for retaining business interest in the software:
“The Start Menu is perhaps the most important thing that will make the desktop experience familiar to business users, and will help reduce resistance to its installation.”
The new operating system offers compatibility with existing management systems, and a categorisation capability to organise and distinguish between corporate and personal data.
Still in its early stages of development, Windows 10 is expected to launch formally by the end of 2015
