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Study: Windows devices exhibited 3.1 times more total forced shutdowns than macOS

Omnissa, a digital work platform company, has released its State of Digital Workspace 2026 report, a global study of telemetry data analyzed across millions of Omnissa-managed enterprise endpoints between January and December 2025. 

The study showed the benefits of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. The Omnissa findings reveal a fragmented IT landscape where AI adoption, device diversity and uneven security posture are making enterprise environments more difficult for IT teams to fully manage and secure.

“The central question becomes how you close blind spots fast enough to keep pace with AI, platform diversity, and distributed work,” said Hemant Sahani, vice president of Product Management at Omnissa. “Converging DEX, security, and management telemetry provides essential context that helps teams close the gap between what they assume about the workspace and what telemetry shows is really occurring.”

The Omnissa State of Digital Workspace 2026 report identified four major trends shaping the modern digital workplace and reinforcing the need for granular, real-time observability.

Shadow perimeter: The rise of shadow AI

AI adoption inside the enterprise is accelerating faster than organizations can govern, as employees introduce new tools into their daily workflows, often outside IT governance, according to Omnissa. The report indicated that usage of AI assistant apps grew nearly 1000% in 2025 across all major operating systems, revealing a growing gap between the tools IT deploys and the ones employees actually use, and reinforcing the need for broader visibility across platforms. 

Key findings also included:

° Copilot was deployed on 97.5% of enterprise-managed mobile devices across both iOS and Android.

Employee-installed alternatives were also highly prevalent, with ° ChatGPT installed on 91% of enterprise-managed iOS systems and Gemini installed on 61% of enterprise-managed Android systems.

Productivity gaps: The hidden cost of poor digital employee experience (DEX)

Employee productivity is tied directly to the digital employee experience — even small disruptions to an employee’s workflow can accumulate as workers require almost 24 minutes to refocus after a disruption. Omnissa telemetry brings the sources of these disruptions, including device stability and performance, to light so organizations can optimize productivity and improve employee experience. 

The Omnissa study analyzed the two most prevalent desktop platforms our customers rely on, Windows and macOS, and the data reveals key areas where Windows devices are more likely to impact employee workflow:

° Windows devices exhibited 3.1 times more total forced shutdowns than macOS.

° Windows experienced 2.2 times more total application crashes than macOS

° Windows experienced 7.5 times more app hangs than macOS

Security hygiene: A blind spot across regulated industries

Organizations in highly regulated industries operate under some of the strictest compliance requirements, yet maintaining consistent security compliance across devices remains a challenge. 

The Omnissa study found industries like healthcare, pharma and education ranked lowest in maintaining device updates and ensuring data on those devices are encrypted. These compliance gaps create a high-stakes blind spot for IT teams and underscore the need for a granular view into the security hygiene of every endpoint. Key findings include:

° More than 50% of the Windows and Android devices in regulated industries such as healthcare and pharma were five major OS updates behind.

° More than 50% of education desktops and mobile devices are unencrypted.

Device lifecycles and total cost of ownership (TCO): No one-size-fits-all approach

The Omnissa study found organizations purchasing Macs are investing in six-year assets, while those purchasing Windows PCs are investing in three-year assets. The study also shows that there’s a clear concentration of ruggedized Android devices in frontline-leaning verticals such as retail and wholesale (34% of Android devices) or iPad Mini at 53% of all iPads in transportation.

Government environments continue to rely heavily on Windows desktop platforms, seeing 2x desktop growth over the last year.

Methodology

The research is based on anonymized and aggregated telemetry data collected from millions of endpoints between January and December 2025. The dataset includes enterprise environments across the globe and 17+ industries, including high tech, retail, healthcare, financial services, education, and government.

Telemetry signals were derived from device, application, and system activity across supported endpoints and operating systems. All data was analyzed in aggregate to identify trends across the digital workspace environment.

To explore the full findings and how these trends are shaping the digital workplace, visit the State of Digital Workspace 2026 report page.

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Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.

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