A new report has revealed that organisations are expected to migrate to Windows 10 at a faster rate than any of the earlier Microsoft operating system updates.

Research firm Gartner estimates that half of enterprises presently using some version of Microsoft’s OS will deploy Windows 10 by January 2017.

Factors driving migrations include the planned end of support for Windows 7 in January 2020, strong compatibility with Windows 10, and a pent-up demand for tablets and two-in-one devices.

Gartner research vice president Steve Kleynhans said: "In the consumer market, a free upgrade coupled with broad legacy device support and automatic over-the-air upgrades ensures that there will be tens of millions of users familiar with the operating system (OS) before the end of 2015.

"For enterprises, we expect that implementation will be significantly more rapid than that seen with Windows 7 six years ago."

Apart from its projections regarding the migration to Windows 10, Gartner has also made three additional endpoint technology predictions.

The company expects that by 2019, organisations will deliver twice as many applications remotely compared with 2015.

Touchscreens are estimated to be shipped on one-third of all notebooks by 2018, and 30% of enterprises will invest more on display screens than on PCs.