By Shira Ovide
Microsoft Corp.'s last version of Windows put off business
customers, its most important constituency. With a new edition of
its operating software scheduled to launch on Wednesday, the
company looks set to benefit from a long, hard effort to rebuild
corporate goodwill.
Windows 8, the previous version launched in 2012, alienated both
corporate customers and their employees with a confusing mishmash
of PC and tablet conventions. Rather than upgrading, many companies
stuck with earlier versions of Windows that are, by now, at least
six years old. Meanwhile, workers shifted to smartphones or other
non-Windows devices for many tasks, prompting some corporate
technology managers to let slide their desktop software and
hardware updates.
For Windows 10, Microsoft went all-out to turn around
perceptions among corporate customers. For the better part of a
year, it distributed in-progress versions to companies and gathered
their feedback, and it sought input from developers of
Windows-based business software that help sell its products to
companies large and small. It gave special attention to
business-focused features such as security and simpler ways to
manage fleets of workplace PCs.
The payoff, if there is one, could be a long time coming, given
the typically slow pace of corporate upgrade schedules. So far,
though, Microsoft's corporate campaign appears to be working.
"I've been pretty surprised by the aggressive stance many of our
corporate customers are taking towards Windows 10," said Gartner
Inc. analyst Stephen Kleynhans. "We are seeing a much more positive
attitude towards getting started earlier with the Windows 10
migration."
Keeping corporate customers happy is essential for Microsoft,
which generates more than $42 billion, or more than two-thirds of
its annual gross profit, from sales of Windows, the Office
productivity-software bundle and other products and services sold
to companies. Microsoft wants Windows 10 installed on as many
business computers as possible, both to hold on to customers and to
sell additional software down the line.
The biggest factor in Microsoft's corporate repair plan was a
long lead time. The company started talking with corporations about
Windows 10 as early as 2013, offering a chance to look at the
software and suggest changes. Many people with purchasing authority
have been using the software for months, thanks to an energetic
beta-test program. Some 30% of the roughly five million people who
downloaded the test version identified themselves as
information-technology workers at large companies, Microsoft
said.
These early looks gave corporate buyers a head start on what
typically is a lengthy period of evaluation before adopting new
technology, company officials said.
Microsoft assembled advisory panels of officials from large
companies and met with them regularly, in person or on the phone,
to discuss Microsoft's confidential plans for Windows 10. The
company also discussed Windows' road map with third parties that
are essential to Windows' success. For example, the company said it
worked with mobile-device security companies to make sure their
software worked seamlessly with Windows.
Familiarity breeds comfort in the world of business technology,
and these efforts built corporate confidence that the Windows 10
would be a fresh start, said Chris Woodin, director of Microsoft
sales operations for SoftChoice Corp., a Toronto company that sells
Microsoft software and other technology to big companies. "There is
a high level of interest," he said.
Market research confirms that assessment. In a recent survey of
information-technology managers, about 73% of respondents said
their company planned to adopt Windows 10 within two years,
according to the survey of more than 500 IT professionals conducted
by Spiceworks, a professional network for information technology
workers.
Mr. Woodin and other experts in corporate tech said the recent
spate of highly public corporate data breaches have made companies
particularly interested in Windows 10's security features. The
software segregates employees' personal and corporate data, for
example barring an employee from pasting into a Twitter post text
copied from a confidential corporate document.
Despite Microsoft's attention to business needs, many corporate
customers that choose to upgrade are likely to take their time. It
can take at least a year to upgrade from one Windows version to
another, as companies wait for Microsoft to work out bugs and make
sure essential in-house software runs smoothly. Even companies that
like Windows 10 won't necessarily move faster than usual, some
corporate customers and PC executives say.
Stephen Hagood, chief information officer of Ingersoll-Rand PLC,
believes Windows 10 blends the best elements of recent Windows
versions. But he said any broad rollout of Windows 10 at the
industrial-products company is at least a year away. He wants to
see how the operating software handles important applications used
by the 43,000-person company, including the large design files its
engineers like to share via email. When the company tested its file
sharing methods in Windows 8, attachments took too long to open,
Mr. Hagood said.
A Microsoft spokeswoman didn't have an immediate comment.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella last week said he expects companies to
start upgrading workplace computers to Windows 10 beginning next
year.
Steven Norton
contributed to this article.
Write to Shira Ovide at shira.ovide@wsj.com
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