When Microsoft first started touting Windows 10, the company set an ambitious goal: to have the operating system installed on 1 billion devices by 2018. That pledge was a bit too ambitious, it seems, as the company announced it’ll need more time to reach that point.
The company is still aiming for that 1 billion mark, but it didn’t give itself a new deadline, at least, not publicly this time.
“Windows 10 is off to the hottest start in history with over 350 million monthly active devices, with record customer satisfaction and engagement,” Yusuf Mehdi, Windows marketing chief, said in a statement via ZDNet. “We’re pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer than FY18 for us to reach our goal of 1 billion monthly active devices.”
The phone hardware business he mentions refers to the company’s ill-fated Windows phone strategy. After buying Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, it was forced to shut down and sell that business when costs skyrocketed, Bloomberg notes.
That took a lot of wind out of Windows 10’s sails, Ars Technica points out, as Microsoft was counting on selling 50 million phones a year, all of them with the new operating system on it.
There also may have been fewer downloads of Windows 10 once Microsoft made its update prompts a bit less pushy, after people complained that the company was being a giant nag.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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