Microsoft "claims" 110M Windows 10 Users?
I'm starting to hate journalists more and more. Remove the quotes from my article title and you get the sort of article title popping up right now.
What's my problem? This isn't a claim. Anyone following the whole Windows 10 thing will tell you, these are actual license activations. Not copies sold.
Putting that in your article title implies that the number may be trying to say something untrue or be misleading. The fact is, right now, they don't have a need to do that. The user base of Windows 10 is growing quite well. There are factors that are less than savory that Microsoft may way want to either ignore or emphasize a little less, like for instance, it was a free upgrade for many of those, or that only a small number of those are new computer sales or that many people fled like the plague from Windows 8.
So, I don't want to seem like I'm blindly supporting Microsoft. That are negatives behind that impressive number. But the number itself should be fairly accurate and is not a PR spin. At the 6 month or 1 year mark we might see some number fudging going on. After all, Microsoft wanted to reach 1 billion devices in 3 years. But OS sales naturally decline after launch for all operating systems and they will run out of people trickling into to free upgrades.
Realistically, they probably need to hit 66%-75% of that goal in the first year if they plan to pass that line on time. I don't think they will do it. Current pace of activations is now around 35M per month, vs 75M in the first month. If I were to make some rough guesstimates, I would that the average for the first year will probably end up only 20M per month (which isn't bad for a desktop OS). But that will only put them a little over double what they have now. And the pace will likely slow down further to 10-15M per month in the years following. If that ends up being the case, they will be hard pressed to do much more than 500M in 3 years.
But make no mistake, Windows 10 is a success for a desktop/laptop OS. And 110M is a HUGE number.
What's my problem? This isn't a claim. Anyone following the whole Windows 10 thing will tell you, these are actual license activations. Not copies sold.
Putting that in your article title implies that the number may be trying to say something untrue or be misleading. The fact is, right now, they don't have a need to do that. The user base of Windows 10 is growing quite well. There are factors that are less than savory that Microsoft may way want to either ignore or emphasize a little less, like for instance, it was a free upgrade for many of those, or that only a small number of those are new computer sales or that many people fled like the plague from Windows 8.
So, I don't want to seem like I'm blindly supporting Microsoft. That are negatives behind that impressive number. But the number itself should be fairly accurate and is not a PR spin. At the 6 month or 1 year mark we might see some number fudging going on. After all, Microsoft wanted to reach 1 billion devices in 3 years. But OS sales naturally decline after launch for all operating systems and they will run out of people trickling into to free upgrades.
Realistically, they probably need to hit 66%-75% of that goal in the first year if they plan to pass that line on time. I don't think they will do it. Current pace of activations is now around 35M per month, vs 75M in the first month. If I were to make some rough guesstimates, I would that the average for the first year will probably end up only 20M per month (which isn't bad for a desktop OS). But that will only put them a little over double what they have now. And the pace will likely slow down further to 10-15M per month in the years following. If that ends up being the case, they will be hard pressed to do much more than 500M in 3 years.
But make no mistake, Windows 10 is a success for a desktop/laptop OS. And 110M is a HUGE number.
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