Windows 10 should scare Google?
This was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise... well it was a sunny day, and it was pretty good... but you get my meaning nonetheless.
This article is AMAZINGLY dimwitted. I'm rather a fan of Microsoft and their products, so it isn't unlike me to be jumping to their defense when I read something I think is stupid or inaccurate that paints them in a bad light. But I'm not also not some fan boy who can't accept reality and cheers blindly for everything in favor of Microsoft.
The article highlights some pretty amazing and important feats. Supposedly, they are well past 87 million installs now, which kicks the pants off of the 14m at the time the article was published. And those numbers ARE good. And they are GREAT for Microsoft. They may end up slaughtering their projections on when they reach 1 billion devices (believe the original plan was 3 or 4 years).
But the problem with the numbers is twofold. Firstly, the majority of that 87 million is NOT new PC sales. It is (primarily) upgrades. And as a direct result, this pace is NOT sustainable. And Microsoft knows this. But some journalists apparently don't or refuse to understand what that means. And secondly, once the pace slows down, it will fall below Android's activations per day which is (according to the most recent data I can find) 1.5m/day. And that IS (more or less) sustainable.
Note: Best numbers I can find are for 2013 which was something like 315m PCs sold in the year (or, 0.88m/day), and the market has shrunk YoY since then so for them to outpace Android in new activations, they would need to nearly double their annual sales of PCs... which realistically ain't gonna happen.
The other thing to consider is that Windows 10's primary market isn't in direct competition with anything Google related except Chromebooks which have a meaningless market share to begin with. In fact, the majority of the 87m Windows 10 users are more likely to own an Android phone than a Windows Phone or even an iPhone. In other words... this likely isn't eroding Google's market share AT ALL, or having any noticeable impact on any Google financials. This should remind you that it is totally possible for Microsoft to grow their business without actually impacting any of their largest competitors. They only affect their competitors when they are largely successful in a market their competitors have a large investment in.
Then they go on to talk about Bing and ad revenue. But WAIT?!?!?! Didn't Microsoft just offload that to AOL!
At the end of the day... Google has nothing to fear from Windows 10 specifically (in the near term). If the success on PC's later translates into success on mobile, that would be a different story. But, unless things change on other fronts, MS isn't really taking anything away from Google Search or Android. Google search being on their biggest ad delivery platforms and Android being the means of getting you to use multiple Google services under an account they can track and thus accounting for almost all of their revenue being un-phased by this.
If I'm being fair... Windows 10 has a much better chance of causing a trickle down effect onto Windows Phone than Widows 8 did. That 87m users in less than a week is an impressive number and may actually attract some developers back to Windows (or to Windows in the first place) and if those devs build Universal Apps you *could* start to see a lot of the previously missing apps start showing in both desktop and phone Stores. And, as I've said all along THIS is the real reason Windows 10 is a free upgrade. It is a gamble that it would A) drive a lot users very quickly to the platform (appears to have paid off) and that B) that large number of users would attract a decent share of developers (remains to be seen).
In short while Ballmer may be gone as CEO and the approach may have changed, the story remains; DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!
This article is AMAZINGLY dimwitted. I'm rather a fan of Microsoft and their products, so it isn't unlike me to be jumping to their defense when I read something I think is stupid or inaccurate that paints them in a bad light. But I'm not also not some fan boy who can't accept reality and cheers blindly for everything in favor of Microsoft.
The article highlights some pretty amazing and important feats. Supposedly, they are well past 87 million installs now, which kicks the pants off of the 14m at the time the article was published. And those numbers ARE good. And they are GREAT for Microsoft. They may end up slaughtering their projections on when they reach 1 billion devices (believe the original plan was 3 or 4 years).
But the problem with the numbers is twofold. Firstly, the majority of that 87 million is NOT new PC sales. It is (primarily) upgrades. And as a direct result, this pace is NOT sustainable. And Microsoft knows this. But some journalists apparently don't or refuse to understand what that means. And secondly, once the pace slows down, it will fall below Android's activations per day which is (according to the most recent data I can find) 1.5m/day. And that IS (more or less) sustainable.
Note: Best numbers I can find are for 2013 which was something like 315m PCs sold in the year (or, 0.88m/day), and the market has shrunk YoY since then so for them to outpace Android in new activations, they would need to nearly double their annual sales of PCs... which realistically ain't gonna happen.
The other thing to consider is that Windows 10's primary market isn't in direct competition with anything Google related except Chromebooks which have a meaningless market share to begin with. In fact, the majority of the 87m Windows 10 users are more likely to own an Android phone than a Windows Phone or even an iPhone. In other words... this likely isn't eroding Google's market share AT ALL, or having any noticeable impact on any Google financials. This should remind you that it is totally possible for Microsoft to grow their business without actually impacting any of their largest competitors. They only affect their competitors when they are largely successful in a market their competitors have a large investment in.
Then they go on to talk about Bing and ad revenue. But WAIT?!?!?! Didn't Microsoft just offload that to AOL!
At the end of the day... Google has nothing to fear from Windows 10 specifically (in the near term). If the success on PC's later translates into success on mobile, that would be a different story. But, unless things change on other fronts, MS isn't really taking anything away from Google Search or Android. Google search being on their biggest ad delivery platforms and Android being the means of getting you to use multiple Google services under an account they can track and thus accounting for almost all of their revenue being un-phased by this.
If I'm being fair... Windows 10 has a much better chance of causing a trickle down effect onto Windows Phone than Widows 8 did. That 87m users in less than a week is an impressive number and may actually attract some developers back to Windows (or to Windows in the first place) and if those devs build Universal Apps you *could* start to see a lot of the previously missing apps start showing in both desktop and phone Stores. And, as I've said all along THIS is the real reason Windows 10 is a free upgrade. It is a gamble that it would A) drive a lot users very quickly to the platform (appears to have paid off) and that B) that large number of users would attract a decent share of developers (remains to be seen).
In short while Ballmer may be gone as CEO and the approach may have changed, the story remains; DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!
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