Roger Fingas
Microsoft won't meet its high ambitions of having Windows 10 installed on 1 billion devices by 2018, owing to the decision to scale back its Windows phone business, the company acknowledged on Friday.
The goal is still to hit 1 billion, but that will take longer to reach, Windows marketing head Yusuf Mehdi said in a statement to Bloomberg. Windows 10 is currently installed on over 350 million devices, among them desktops, laptops, tablets, and a handful of phone models.
Microsoft hasn't been able to make much headway in the smartphone market, which is dominated largely by Android products and Apple's iPhone. A $7.2 billion takeover of Nokia's mobile phone unit ultimately proved fruitless — the feature phone division was sold to Foxconn for $350 million, and the company recently axed almost 2,000 mobile-related jobs while booking a $950 million restructuring charge.
Windows 10 has enjoyed a much better reception in the PC world, but some of that goodwill was lost when users complained about having the upgrade forced on them, and/or about repeated messages asking them to switch. Blowback led Microsoft to change how it delivers the OS.
The company likely had the "1 billion" target in mind, although its overall product strategy benefits from having as many people on the same OS as possible, much in the same way Apple benefits from people being updated to the latest version of iOS or macOS. Some features and services may not work on older software.
Malcolm Owen
Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Stephen Silver
Charles Martin
26 Comments
Bummer.
Why even set a goal like this?
Customers don't care if Windows 10 is installed on 800 million devices or 1.2 billion devices by a certain date. All they would care about is how well it works on THEIR devices.
But setting a goal... and missing it... can only lead to embarrassment for the company. The phrase "moving goalposts" comes to mind.
I think it's funny that they are blaming this on the lack of Windows phone adoption. Guess what... Windows phones were already tanking when they set this goal in the first place!
Surely they didn't expect Windows phones to be a big part of the 1 billion devices, did they?
Good!
Personally, I think that Windows 10 is a huge step backwards.
I studied Operating Systems back in the early 1970's. I formulated a set of rules to use when evaluating Operating Systems.
Windows 10 scores a measly 1.5 out of 10. AT&T System 3B Unix (circa 1984) scored 4 out of 10.
I tried it for almost 2 weeks. After due considerarion I decided that I will never use it in anger. Daddy MS Is not always right.
Then there is this latest move to stop Linux from being booted on Windows-RT devices. That is just Petty.
MS is losing lots of what credibility that they have left with an awful lot of IT professionals.
I sincerely hope that Apple is not going to follow them.
how does your scoring system work?