Businesses, ISVs Will Wait for Windows 8 to Mature

"Enterprises will simply wait on Windows 8 for the next year or so, except for trials with tablets that will produce a flurry of attention but won't stimulate early large-scale migrations to Windows 8."

Yet by the same token, calling Windows 8 "Vista part 2" is wrongheaded, according to Gillett, because there is little sign of compatibility problems, which was one of Vista's major shortcomings.

Instead, Gillett predicts, Windows 8 will take a year or so to penetrate the market. In 2013, he writes, ISVs will work through the new Windows 8 UX and wait as the apps ecosystem and the Windows Store mature; hardware makers, meanwhile, will hedge their bets on Windows 8 and hold out for the next generation of Intel chips, codenamed Haswell, and release new Windows 8 devices with new Intel chips in the fall of 2013, writes Gillett.

"We believe it will take a year for customers and the Microsoft ecosystem to digest the transformation of Windows and that 2014 will be the year that Windows 8 gains firm market traction in conventional and touch devices, and by 2016 it will gain almost a 30 percent share of tablets."