Over the weekend, HP has been emailing its customers with the message that "Windows 7 is back." The company also launched a new campaign on its website saying that the OS is "back by popular demand".
The bold move means that HP is dropping Windows 8 by preloading most of its PCs with Windows 7 as standard, with Windows 8 relegated to being an optional customisation. The company decided that Windows 7's popularity was its best chance to sell more PCs in a declining market, with discounts of $150 advertised, encouraging consumers to take preference on Windows 7 PCs.
Many may think that HP's decision was made upon considering several factors going against Windows 8; including its public perception, criticism over its hybrid system, the fact its largely blamed for the declining PC market and even rumours of Microsoft's plan to accelerate Windows 9's release.
However the company's stand in favour of Windows 7 was said to be "a clever pitch by HP, not a change in sales strategy" by ZDNet's Ed Bott. Reportedly, HP is actually selling less Windows 7 models today than it did last summer, contradicting the "by popular demand" assertion.
A table of HP's mix of OSes on PCs sold online was also provided by Bott (see below) indicating a total of five models of Windows 7 PCs sold in Jan 2014 compared to the 68 Windows 8/8.1, challenging the firm's campaign slogan.
|
Operating System |
August 2013 |
January 2014 |
|
Laptops/Hybrids |
|
|
|
Android |
1 |
1 |
|
Chrome OS |
2 |
5 |
|
Windows 7 |
4 |
2 |
|
Windows 8.x |
31 |
35 |
|
Desktops/All-in-ones |
|
|
|
Android |
0 |
1 |
|
Windows 7 |
4 |
3 |
|
Windows 8.x |
30 |
33 |
According to IDC's recent report, HP's shipments in U.S. have plummeted more than 12 per cent year on year. We think that the firm has cleverly planned its new promotion as it chose to promote Windows 7 as a selling point. (According to StatCounter, Windows 7 had 54.8 per cent share of browsing worldwide whilst Windows 8/8.1 has an 8.1 per cent share.) We'll be interested to see how HP's PC sales are affected by the new Windows 7 focus, in the next quarterly results.
