CRN Deep Dive: How the Windows 11 refresh is impacting Aussie partners

From upgrading hardware to hosting educational forums, this is how the channel has been ensuring all their customers are up to date.

At CES 2025, Microsoft announced that this year would be the “year of the Windows 11 PC refresh”.

From October 14, 2025, the tech giant will no longer be bringing out security or feature updates for Windows 10.

A PC refresh isn’t a new concept to those in the service provider world, who have experienced their fair share of Windows end-of-life transition periods.

Most customers have transitioned to Windows 11, like most transformation projects there are still some challenges – as well as wins – within this refresh journey.

As the deadline looms for the end of Windows 10 support, CRN Australia spoke to several partners, resellers and distributors on how the refresh is impacting their business.

When it comes to refreshing their systems, Sunny Bhatia, chief information and digital officer at systems integrator Digital61 has recognised two distinct behaviours among their agencies.

The first is a proactive behaviour, where agencies are getting the refresh done before the deadline.

“They were essentially starting their migration ahead of Microsoft's end of support or extended support deadlines,” he said.

“They wanted to make sure that they're staying ahead of the curve, modernising their fleet, aligning with their product digital transformation agendas.”

He said these agencies that are getting the jump on the refresh are the ones that want to be known as digital transformation leaders in their industry.

The other behaviour Bhatia has noticed is a delayed or cautious approach to the refresh.

"What they did was choosing to wait it out, and primarily that's to perceive complexity or internal risk management and concerns they have,” he said.

Bhatia highlighted that Digital61 sat down with those agencies who were cautious and demystified the integration points, which helped them change their mind.

“There's been a bit of shift going, ‘what we have to do it, and let's try to avoid being away from delaying and cautious approach’,” he explained.

A “simple” refresh

Brad Mumford, digital workplace services practice leader at Kyndryl noted that this refresh is a relatively simple migration compared to previous Windows refreshes.

“The Windows 7 to Windows 10 was a step change in the in the operating system environment,” he said.

"With the introductions of AI and hardware challenges this is not necessarily a large step in the operating environment, but the hardware to support those new features is significant.”

Mumford said this is a hardware investment for a lot of customers, as well as operating system migration refresh.

“It's been interesting progress this one compared to previous. I've done it from 95 through to 98 to ME to XP, this one is more interesting. The hardware component is where our customers are being more challenged.”

An odd dilemma Mumford faced was some of his customers up in arms over a new default font. Aptos is the new default font rather than the usual Ariel, an issue for some using Excel.

"It's a skinnier font. It's a little bit different. We don't have Ariel anymore or Calibra that was in the previous version,” he said.

“What we find is we had some challenges, and this was just unique to the migration. The customers were creating macros that are pointing to a particular cell on the screen because that size of font is now smaller, the macros are getting different responses.

“There was some automation that was intended to help employees do their job that were impacted by simply a user interface change that for others that wouldn't even recognise it.”

The impact on the bottom line

The refresh is also having an impact on partners’ revenue and business, Mark Walton, APAC business management VP, Crayon said the refresh does have some form of impact on their bottom line.

"In the old days, when you did a PC refresh, it literally was just shipping a piece of hardware,” he said.

“But in today's day and age, there's so many additional services that you can wrap around a device now and our SMBs demand it.”

Walton said they don’t just want a device shipped, they want it set up too.

“They need help with end user readiness, enablement, they need help with cybersecurity,” he added.

This is opportunity for their partners’ bottom line in terms of driving services, he noted.

“That's why device as a service is such a great concept, because it reduces the cost upfront for the SMB, but the partner can just continually wrap new and creative services to really enable those SMBs to drive cost optimisation,” Walton added.

Partners are also feeling the benefits of the Windows 11 refresh.

Bhatia at Digital said this refresh has become a broader conversation where they’re not just asking to help with Windows 11 but also modernise other parts of the organisation.

“When you start talking about Windows 11, we go where does modernisation stand, especially from the security imperative point of view?

“Windows 11 is not just a UI upgrade, it's a foundational piece from zero trust point of view architecture. It's a foundational piece when you start looking into secure by design approaches, that helps from the broader conversation.”

Security top of mind

One of the main reasons organisations are urged to refresh their systems now is to ensure they are on top of all the security updates.

Mumford at Kyndryl said the IT provider wrote a statement to its customers who haven’t made the switch on the risks.

“We issued a letter to say: This is your environment that we're supporting, these are the challenges that we are seeing with the migration.

“We suggest that you move across because of the security challenges that could arise if you have a device that's unpatched and unmanaged in the environment,” he said.

Mumford did note that some of their customers are using Windows XP or Vista on particular devices.

"We see some older flavours, and they're really dedicated devices for a particular function and a particular application that that won't work in the in the newer platforms, in the new operating environments,” he said.

"We've got to support and secure all devices, regardless of what their manufacturing warranty and maintenance.”

Walton at Crayon noted that cybersecurity capabilities in Windows 11 are addressing SMB concerns around those businesses being “low hanging fruit” for bad actors.

“They really are addressing those concerns from an SMB perspective, because it really has security sort of built in by default,” he said.

“We have zero trust built into the operating system. So, it is around isolation, encryption and malware protection, which is critical for an SMB.”

Why complacency?

With only a few months left until Windows 10 support is over, some businesses still haven’t begun the transition.

This is due to several reasons from other projects taking up their time and resistance to change.

Jason Puschmann, managing director at Computer Alliance said while most of their customers have switched to Windows 11, the complacency for the transition is most likely due to organisations focusing on other projects.

“They could have other infrastructure projects that are probably more important, or what they perceived as more important,” he said.

“Maybe they're not thinking about compliance from a security aspect or they're happy to pay the money to Microsoft to keep the security updates for Windows 10 for a bit longer as well.

“A lot of these larger corporates, or whether it's government, they've got to test the image make sure all their current infrastructure and software works with Windows 11 and sometimes that might be a little bit overwhelming.”

Lee Gurd, general manager at Computer Alliance said he is noticing a lot of ambivalence in the corporate and enterprise space around refreshing their PCs.

“[They say] that'll be a thing for tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes,” he explained.

Some organisations have also just refreshed their PCs and don’t have the budget to do another one so soon.

“The whole budget process is worked out on that three- or four-year life cycle, to cut that short, which would see significant loss of that return on investment,” Gurd added.

The AI PC of it all

As the popularity of AI continues to surge, it has influenced those to refresh their Windows devices, Walton explained.

“The AI rush has led to a Windows 11 upgrade rush at the same time. And I'd say that the AI rush is probably giving people more of a purpose to really upgrade the device,” he explained.

Windows 11 has several AI features to help users with their productivity, education and creative projects.

This means that organisations when they upgrade their hardware could be more inclined to invest in an AI PC to take advantage of those features.

Justin Lowe, director, ASI Solutions said there is an uptick in interest in AI PCs but it's “early days”.

“For most customers, there’s still a lack of clarity on what ‘AI PC’ really means and how soon it drives ROI,” he stated.

“What we’re doing is bundling Windows 11 refresh with future-proofing strategies, if you're upgrading now, make sure it supports NPU workloads so you’re Copilot+PC ready when you're ready to deploy.

“We are doing lots of customer engagements and proof of concepts alongside them.”

As many of the mid to high range PC devices already have AI capabilities, Puschmann at Computer Alliance said there is more of a natural progression in AI PC growth.

He said he isn’t noticing a growth in customer demand for AI PCs because of the refresh.

“Thinking about AI enabled devices, does the average end user or IT manager understand what advantages that gives you? An AI enabled laptop has much better security for vulnerabilities and security, but a lot of people don't think about that,” he explained.

“But are we seeing a great migration at this stage? No, but I feel it will come in the coming 12 months to two year cycle as the technology gets cheaper, more SKUs become available, and the refreshes come out.”

Windows 11 education

To ensure customers are refreshing their devices some partners have provided educational sessions and tools for their customers.

Bhatia at Digital61 said the company has been very proactive in educating their agencies.

“The education piece was really important,” he said.

“Our stance is to make sure that we explain the migration journey, and we educate the customer where requires.”

Last refresh cycle, Bhatia said they saw that their customers really underestimated the user experience changes and compatibility checks that are involved.

“Essentially, from our point of view, we've been very proactive, sporting the transition through tailored enablement workshops, readiness assessments, internal comms, toolkits, to help that change itself,” he said.

The timing of the education was also very important to Bhatia and Digital61.

“When we were essentially delivering these education workshops, they can only be targeted and effective if they were delivered at the right time,” he explained.

“If agencies aren’t ready and we are pushing for it you are going to go around in circles.”

Lowe at ASI Solutions said the education has been “essential” at his company.

"We’re running customer advisory sessions that break down what’s different with Windows 11, it’s not just interface change, it’s a shift toward secure-core PCs, AI-readiness, and cloud-first deployment,” he explained.

“We also support this through our digital skills program which is giving control back to users in coaching on how to get the most out of the technology that they have been provided or investing in.

“There has been a lot of work in the last 12 months across the country.”