
1/3 of new PCs ship without Windows 7. What's filling the gap? - abennett
http://www.itworld.com/open-source/159695/windows-7-share-decline-could-mean-security-headaches
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dspillett
Well firstly the number of PCs figure is an estimate so there could be
significant error there.

A fair number of machines still sell with Vista (some with XP-or-Vista) and
many are sold blank with the end user putting Linux on or a hooky copy of
Windows.

Obviously some people will be putting Linux on the new machines, even though
very few _ship_ with the alternate OS (most Linux users buy a machine with no
OS and install their preferred Linux arrangement).

But I suspect a massive part of the discrepancy is people reusing old Windows
licenses with newer PCs, particularly in corporate environments where the
company will have bought X user licenses which are valid no matter what the
user uses them on: so when the new machine is bought the company standard
build is installed (and the license transferred in any asset tracking system
the organisation has) before the old machine is binned.

Some of these reused licenses will be windows 7 ones, though the majority will
be XP or Vista as many companies are sill stuck on Vista or XP for their
standard desktop OS builds (one large financial company I could mention only
completed their move away from _NT_ , to XP, in 2006 - I doubt they'll be
using 7 any time soon!).

