@chaosclown:

In my opinion, there is no real reason businesses should be looking to upgrade. 8 will be passed over like vista was and Windows 9 (or what ever they call the next one) will be the next OS of choice in the business environment.
Well, as far as Vista is concerned it was overlooked because of the potential issues of trying to roll it out into a mature (mixed) hardware environment.

Personally, I tried it on a machine that exeeded all the MS published minimum requirements by 100% or better. It ran like a total load of crap and was quite unstable. I have since installed Windows 8 32bit on the same box and it runs just fine, albeit a bit slow. That, BTW is with Ultimate and all eyecandy turned ON..... I had it switched OFF for Vista Home Premium.

It seems to me that this is going to be a matter of timing, as Windows XP support ends in April 2014? Windows 9 or whatever certainly won't be ready and have attained maturity by then, which leaves a choice of Windows 7 or 8.

I would guess that if you were looking to upgrade from XP in the last quarter of 2013 or first quarter of 2014 then you would be looking at Windows 8? Particularly as it should have got to SP1 by then? Any later than that and it just has to be Windows 8.

Unless businesses upgrade to touch friendly devices
I have certainly noticed a tendency towards this in the high street, banks, and shopping malls............ basically "customer facing" and EPOS deployments.

@Foxy~

but why buy a pre-installed Win7 PC that has to be imaged with XP, as it has a paper trail to cover the downgrade, so that in time it can be upgraded back to what it started with
To sell it on at a better price when you replace it? You really only get discounts for volume, as the vendors know you will reimage when you get them.

and cost is always a factor
Exactly!............. I wonder if there will be a "dumbed down for old hardware" version available on corporate licence?

Mind you, I have been testing it on technology that is 10 years' old or more so that might not be such an issue except possibly in developing nations.