Microsoft updated its “Microsoft by the Numbers” website boasting its 1.5 billion Windows-powered PCs. These numbers put Microsoft behind Android with its 2 billion active devices and ahead of Apple with its 1.3 billion active devices.
The figure confirms that the Windows market has remained largely stagnant with Microsoft no longer interested in grabbing a pie of the ever-increasing mobile market. However, the company is definitely experiencing a growth in the enterprise segment with Windows 10 Pro seeing an 8% YoY growth.
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Windows 10 and the problem of updates
1.5 billion is quite an accomplishment, but it reveals yet again the monumental task of keeping these devices updated. Microsoft has over 700 million devices running on Windows 10 going by the numbers shared in July. As Windows 7 reaches its end of life in January 2020, it is expected that more devices will upgrade to the latest operating system.
However, if it took the company over 3 years to get 700 million devices onboard, 800 million devices won’t be upgraded to Windows 10 in a little over a year. While some of these are never going to be running on Windows 10, there are still millions of machines that are compatible with and can easily run the latest desktop operating system.
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While Windows is no longer Microsoft’s primary source of profit as the company continues to focus on its cloud services and government projects, it is the only consumer-facing product. With Microsoft no longer focusing on a mobile operating system, the company could start losing its dominance to Google and Apple. Google already leads with its Android numbers and Apple offers an ecosystem where all its devices work seamlessly together.
Microsoft certainly appears to be opening up Windows 10 to Android and iOS to make sure that it doesn’t lose market share just because Android and iOS users decide to shift to PCs made by their phone’s manufacturers. However, it remains to be seen if the company can increase – or even maintain – its numbers without having any mobile presence.
“Microsoft by the Numbers” (via Neowin) was initially launched in 2015 and offers interesting trivia about the Redmond software giant. Microsoft said that it analyzes over 6.5 trillion signals to identify emerging threats and protect customers; its Cortana has been asked 18 billion questions since launch; and that with a sound level of -20.6dB, Microsoft’s anechoic chamber holds the Guinness Record for World’s Quietest Place.
You can check out more of these tidbits over at the website.
