Windows 7 will be supported for years (probably past the lifetime of many of the machines it's running on), and is well understood, and builds on years of similar previous versions.

Windows 8 is different enough that it's reasonable to watch from the sidelines for awhile.

Not new is hardly obsolete. It's an operating system that works and will continue to work for many years to come.

Windows 7 is more like Windows XP/Vista than Windows 8 is so it is more likely easier to just drop them back to what they probably already know.

Also Windows 8 is brand new and while it works just fine upgrading to it isn't really something that needs too be done just yet. Windows 7 is still a great OS.

For what I've read Windows 8 flourishes on tablets but can be a bit annoying/split minded when controlled by a mouse. This combined with the fact that most businesses will probably skip Windows 8 and stay with/move to 7 gives me the trust it will be maintained for a while.

That is a pretty spot on summary of Windows 8. I use it on a laptop (no touch screen) and really like it but it can be a little bit disjointed to use. Saying that I never use any of the Metro (Modern UI) apps and uninstalled them all as soon as I installed Windows 8. They are not the kind of applications I want to use on a general purpose computer. A tablet? Yeah ok but not with a mouse. The 'old' desktop way of doing things is far better than the new way for 'old' input devices.

Windows 7 is not obsolete. It works, new hardware for many years will have Windows 7 drivers, and new games will work in Windows 7.

Unless you are a MS salesman trying to pitch WindowsRT...