No 1 Billion Windows 10 years in 3 years
Hey Microsoft agrees with me! Belatedly, but yeah.
A while back, while others were marveling at the impressive growth of Windows 10 and speculating that they should easily hit 1 billion in 3 years, I was skeptical. In fact, I do believe I outright predicted they would fail.
At 350 million in one year, that sounds like the pace is actually a little fast. But, there were a number of factors that drove those initial adoption numbers. Free upgrades were a major one. The way Microsoft basically rammed it down everyone's throat (my wife is no tech idiot, and yet despite never remembering agreeing to it, her work laptop updated) certainly boosted numbers. Then there is the OEM side of things, new PC models dry up while they wait for the OS creating an infusion of new hardware in the market. Also, even if an OS isn't wildly popular, a new version can often spur some fans to pick up new hardware or a license and lastly, people seemed to hate Windows 8, fuelling those who hadn't jumped to another platform to jump to Windows 10.
Put in the simplest way possible... whatever numbers they yielded in their first year, it was known that they would unsustainable. I speculated that they would have needed to have reached something in 450-600 million range in the first year to get 1 billion by year 3. And, by about the 3rd month on the market the numbers per month had already dropped to low double digit millions, and they were only just over 100 million at that point.
Microsoft blames phone partly for this... which is rich. While I'm not going to pretend that it seemed likely that Windows Phone was poised to grow at any substantial rate, but it was (in my opinion) their decision to kill off any attempt to update all WP8 Lumia's that both drove consumers away and decreased the number of potential handsets to get the update. In other words, they dealt a twofold blow to their mobile plans all on their own.
On the one hand they tossed away the largest group of their phone users. And on the other hand, the move looks like yet another kick in the crotch to those that gave them the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't be abandoned... AGAIN! Which likely helped drive sales down, rather than up.
Side rant: I'm still pissed about my HTC One M8 not getting Windows 10. Windows 10 Insider builds ran perfectly on that device. And it even ran OK my Lumia 1020 towards the end. That M8, despite its age, still has better specs than more new Windows Phones getting it. Really the 950 and 950XL are the only major deviants.
Anyway, I think it is safe to say that Windows Phone wasn't going to buffer those numbers enough even if they hadn't kicked its users to the curb.
I think I'm still in the same place I was before. I think they will hit somewhere around 750-800 million by the 3 year mark. With them at 350 now, that means an average of 200 million devices annually.
I also think those numbers will drop even further afterwards. Over the next few years, enterprises will probably move slowly over. Otherwise, it isn't insane to think the yearly average would be lower.
A while back, while others were marveling at the impressive growth of Windows 10 and speculating that they should easily hit 1 billion in 3 years, I was skeptical. In fact, I do believe I outright predicted they would fail.
At 350 million in one year, that sounds like the pace is actually a little fast. But, there were a number of factors that drove those initial adoption numbers. Free upgrades were a major one. The way Microsoft basically rammed it down everyone's throat (my wife is no tech idiot, and yet despite never remembering agreeing to it, her work laptop updated) certainly boosted numbers. Then there is the OEM side of things, new PC models dry up while they wait for the OS creating an infusion of new hardware in the market. Also, even if an OS isn't wildly popular, a new version can often spur some fans to pick up new hardware or a license and lastly, people seemed to hate Windows 8, fuelling those who hadn't jumped to another platform to jump to Windows 10.
Put in the simplest way possible... whatever numbers they yielded in their first year, it was known that they would unsustainable. I speculated that they would have needed to have reached something in 450-600 million range in the first year to get 1 billion by year 3. And, by about the 3rd month on the market the numbers per month had already dropped to low double digit millions, and they were only just over 100 million at that point.
Microsoft blames phone partly for this... which is rich. While I'm not going to pretend that it seemed likely that Windows Phone was poised to grow at any substantial rate, but it was (in my opinion) their decision to kill off any attempt to update all WP8 Lumia's that both drove consumers away and decreased the number of potential handsets to get the update. In other words, they dealt a twofold blow to their mobile plans all on their own.
On the one hand they tossed away the largest group of their phone users. And on the other hand, the move looks like yet another kick in the crotch to those that gave them the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't be abandoned... AGAIN! Which likely helped drive sales down, rather than up.
Side rant: I'm still pissed about my HTC One M8 not getting Windows 10. Windows 10 Insider builds ran perfectly on that device. And it even ran OK my Lumia 1020 towards the end. That M8, despite its age, still has better specs than more new Windows Phones getting it. Really the 950 and 950XL are the only major deviants.
Anyway, I think it is safe to say that Windows Phone wasn't going to buffer those numbers enough even if they hadn't kicked its users to the curb.
I think I'm still in the same place I was before. I think they will hit somewhere around 750-800 million by the 3 year mark. With them at 350 now, that means an average of 200 million devices annually.
I also think those numbers will drop even further afterwards. Over the next few years, enterprises will probably move slowly over. Otherwise, it isn't insane to think the yearly average would be lower.
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