08/12/2015
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A few points, dear reader, to get ourselves acclimated:
Windows 10 landed in the market at the beginning of this month to moderately strong reviews
Microsoft is hellbent on attracting a user base for its new operating system quickly
A large Windows 10 user install base implies higher rates of app downloads. That makes extant developers happy, and attracts new developers.
The more and better apps there are for Windows 10, the better the user experience for consumers and businesses. That attracts new users, and usage, creating a virtuous cycle.
That’s how Windows 10 wins, and grows the Windows franchise for Microsoft.
Windows 10 loses in the precise opposite way: Low adoption leads to limited downloads for extant developers, scaring off new developers. A lack of apps cuts at the Windows 10 experience, leading to limited adoption; this discourages developers, creating a negative feedback loop.
We’ve known that for so long, actually stating it out loud seems like shouting the obvious. However, the primer is useful as it underscores the new question we have to ask: Not how well Windows 10 will do, but, instead, how well is it doing?
Let’s examine the data points that we have from consumer, and enterprise perspectives. Consumer first:
The Consumer Question
Microsoft has promised one billion Windows 10 devices in the market in the next two or three years. This is a deliberately vague promise that comes with wide latitude for Microsoft — it doesn’t have to sell one billion licenses. It just has to get a billion devices running the damn thing; I hope that underscores why Windows 10 is a free upgrade (for consumers).
Now, we have a few data points to examine. You’ll quickly note that we are working with partial data that isn’t entirely clear, and comes from either sources that are sometimes too official, and sometimes not official enough. Such is life. We must struggle on this developer coil.
The Microsoft Number
How many ways can you interpret the number 14 million? A huge number of ways. Here’s Microsoft’s formal verbiage on the figure it announced at Windows 10 had been in the market for 24 hours:
As we’ve shared, our top priority has been ensuring that everyone has a great upgrade experience, so, we are carefully rolling out Windows 10 in phases, delivering Windows 10 first to our Windows Insiders. While we now have more than 14 million devices running Windows 10, we still have many more upgrades to go before we catch up to each of you that reserved your upgrade.
That number is very hard to pin down — how many of those devices came from the more than five million Windows 10 testers? I know that I put Windows 10 on several devices in the run-up to its release. So the 14 million number only gives us a data point with little trend data around it. Consider a first pin in the larger cork.
Brad Sams, Part 1
Following the Official Microsoft Number, Neowin’s Brad Sams wrote, citing internal sources, pegged the number of Windows 10 machines in the market at 18.5 million. That figure, Sams noted, was in contrast to a much higher figure that was bouncing around the Nets for a short shake.
The 18.5 million figure was reported by Sams on August 3rd, less than week after the 14 million figure was released.
Brad Sams, Part 2
Sams did it again, four days later, reporting that the number of Windows 10 machines had risen to 25 million, and, that, according to Sams, the tally on that day “may [have been] as high as 27 million.”
So, that takes us from 14 million to 18.5 million to 25 million, and maybe to 27 million, as of Friday. Add in the weekend, and the prior pace, it seems mostly safe to peg Windows 10 machines in the market at around 30 million. Microsoft could cross the 50 million mark this month, if I let myself get over my prediction skis just a bit.
Source : techcrunch.com
