When Windows 10 came out, Microsoft had an ambitious goal- get the OS running on over 1 billion devices by 2018. It seemed to be crazy ambitious – that many devices in such a short period of time? – but Microsoft made multiple bold moves to meet this target, including distributing Windows 10 for free for the first year, and also making Windows 10 largely platform agnostic, capable of running on PCs, tablets, phones, and even Xbox.
However, it seems as though the company will end up missing its 1 billion device target regardless- and it sounds as though the failure of Windows Phone is to blame for that. In a statement issued to ZDNet, Microsoft admitted that it would miss the 1 billion devices goal, but also pointed out that Windows 10 remains the fastest adopted OS in Windows history regardless.
“Windows 10 is off to the hottest start in history with over 350m monthly active devices, with record customer satisfaction and engagement,” said a Microsoft spokesperson. “We’re pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer than FY18 for us to reach our goal of 1 billion monthly active devices. In the year ahead, we are excited about usage growth coming from commercial deployments and new devices – and increasing customer delight with Windows.”
I do believe that Windows 10 will eventually get to a billion devices, of course- just not right away. I also understand that the bottom dropping out of Microsoft’s smartphone market probably led to their projections taking a significant hit, since Microsoft were probably counting on a substantial number of Windows 10 phones on the market contributing to the 1 billion goal.
That said, even if Microsoft are missing their lofty projected milestone, it doesn’t matter- Windows 10, warts and all, is the OS of the future, it is successful, and it is here to stay.