The duel between Windows and macOS is sometimes summed up as a war of preferences. In the business world, it becomes mostly a question of wasted time and loss of productivity. This is precisely what the State of Digital Workspace 2026 report published by Omnissa highlights.
This study is based on anonymized telemetry data aggregated from millions of enterprise devices using Omnissa solutions over a twelve-month period in 2025.
The conclusion is striking. macOS outperforms Windows on certain indicators. These differences touch what costs a company dearly without always appearing in traditional dashboards. We’re talking about interruptions, forced restarts, frozen applications, and loss of focus after incidents.
Old Macs still productive
Apple machines seem to remain in service longer. The report indicates that 11.5% of observed Macs were still in use beyond the sixth year, compared to only 1.8% of Windows PCs. This is not a verdict associated with the quality of all Windows PCs, as the Microsoft ecosystem covers a vast variety of hardware and configurations. But in a real professional environment, the measured difference in longevity is clear.
However, this figure says something important in the world of work. A device that lasts longer without leaving the fleet reduces pressure on refresh cycles, migrations, and especially hidden costs associated with replacements.
More efficient maintenance with Apple
The second difference lies in the speed of updates. Omnissa claims that macOS is updated 1.5 times faster than Windows. In detail, 77% of Macs were on the most recent system version, compared to 51% of Windows PCs. By adding the immediately preceding version, it goes up to 89% for macOS and 77% for Windows.
For a company, this is an important criterion. A more up-to-date fleet reduces the window of exposure to vulnerabilities and limits the maintenance of old environments that have become difficult to secure. The report also emphasizes that certain critical sectors remain particularly lagging on Windows, notably healthcare, pharmacy, and retail.
Windows suffers from invisible interruptions
The toughest point for Windows comes on the employee experience side. Omnissa indicates that Windows terminals experience 3.1 times more forced shutdowns, 2.2 times more application crashes, and 7.5 times more app freezes than devices running macOS.
These are probably the most important figures in the report because they impact daily usage and productivity. A forced restart or a frozen application is not just an IT incident. It is a mental break in work and a sudden halt to productivity.
Employees are less satisfied on Windows
The report further supports this trend through the DEX score, the employee experience indicator used by Omnissa. On desktop, the proportion of devices classified as “Good” reaches 65% on macOS compared to 54% on Windows. Conversely, the “Poor” category represents 5% on Mac compared to 15% on Windows.
Again, this does not imply that all Windows devices offer a poor experience, nor that all Macs are flawless. But on the scale of millions of devices, the trend is there and warrants further investigation.
Omnissa also points to an alarming situation in terms of security. There are reportedly 20% of government devices not encrypted and over 50% in education. The document also stresses blind spots around unauthorized applications, unapproved AI usage by companies, and the increasingly fragmented work environments.
