Microsoft is ramping up Windows 11 messaging in the news, recently claiming the new OS is being adopted at twice the rate that Windows 10 was a few years ago.* Home and small business users may be the bulk of those early adopters if the pattern follows that of earlier OS versions.
It’s a little early for enterprises to have FOMO. That’s because experts say that most enterprises will likely wait until next year (2023).** These opinions are mostly in line with what our own enterprise customer base told us in a recent survey:
- 12% are planning to migrate in the first half of 2022
- 41% are planning to migrate in the second half of 2022 and
- 41% are planning to migrate sometime during 2023
We recently delivered a live webinar on the topic, see and hear the recording here. The session entitled, “Formula for successful deployment and automated user migrations with Liquidware,” will cover what your organization should be doing to prepare for Windows 11. If you miss the live webinar, we’ll also post a recording soon.
What’s New in Windows 11?
Windows 11’s interface is being called “Mac-like.” This new look comes with many changes. The Start Menu and task bar are notably different and there are also new capabilities called Windows Widgets, and Snap Layouts and Groups. Just a few days ago Microsoft also introduced Android app capabilities in the latest preview. Don’t get too excited about Android apps, it’s limited because it relies on the Amazon App Store (USA only). To be clear, this is not the same as Android Apps via Google Play, which would include far more Android apps. With all of these changes, the Windows user profile is also very different between Windows 10 and 11 so upgrades are not seamless for enterprise users.
Never fear though because just this week we announced that ProfileUnity and FlexApp 6.8.4 R2 is now available! ProfileUnity remediates user profile changes from OS to OS on the fly, in seconds, enabling a zero user downtime transition to Windows 11. This version features enhanced support for Windows 11 and Server 2022. Watch the recently recorded webinar now.
Citations and further reading:
*“People are adopting Windows 11 at twice the rate of 10, OS upgrade offer ahead of schedule” January 26, 2022, WindowsCentral.com
** “Windows 11 adoption nears 9%, but businesses are waiting” Dec. 2, 2023, Computerworld.com