"The investments [enterprise customers] are making today on Windows 7 from a hardware infrastructure and also in application compatibility carry forward into Windows 8," Visser said.

At the same time, Microsoft is "very proud and bullish" about the value of Windows 8 for enterprises, so it expects to see customers upgrade to it from Windows 7, he said.

Some enterprises will opt to do a broad desktop OS upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8, while others will deploy Windows 8 initially in a more targeted and limited manner, to, for example, roll out tablet devices to their employees or take advantage of certain OS improvements in security, performance or virtualization, he said.

Whatever the case, enterprises in general will find that upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 will be significantly simpler and less expensive than upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7, he said. The XP-to-Windows 7 involves costs related to upgrading PC and other related hardware and to modifying applications, which will be much lower when moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8, he said.

The IDG News Service