Posted on 07/15/2016 8:13:13 PM PDT by dayglored
All that nagware hasn't worked
When Windows 10 launched, Microsoft claimed it would have the new operating system on a billion devices by mid-2018. That isn't going to happen, however, Redmond has now admitted.
For the past year, Microsoft has offered the new OS as a free upgrade for both desktop and mobile users (provided the phone can handle it in the latter case), and has been pushing it for Internet of Things makers. However, so far the OS is only on 350 million monthly active devices, and Redmond says it needs more time to hit ten figures.
"We're pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer than FY18 [the year to July 2018] for us to reach our goal of one billion monthly active devices," a spokeswoman told The Reg.
"In the year ahead, we are excited about usage growth coming from commercial deployments and new devices – and increasing customer delight with Windows."
The admission shows that the persistent nagware on PCs for users of Windows 7 and 8.1 hasn't worked, despite Microsoft attempting some fairly underhanded tactics to get people to upgrade, and may have soured some on the OS.
Enterprises, which were thought to be big believers in the new operating system, have also been unimpressed. Sure, there are pilot programs running in many companies, but IT managers have shown little willingness to do a mass upgrade when earlier operating systems are still working well.
The other failure point is with Microsoft's mobile strategy, or lack of one these days. Windows Phone sales are cratering, it's not a popular OS with vendors, and although Microsoft says it is still developing the platform, their OS is short on apps and customers.
Microsoft can expect an upsurge in Windows 10 installations from PC users toward the end of the month, when the free upgrade offer ends. But with PC sales disappointing, mobile users a dying breed, and enterprise not biting yet, it's clear Microsoft will need longer than two years to hit the billion mark. 2020 perhaps?
I have a permanent window box, which I hide with my browser, insisting I upgrade. There is no little ‘x’ to close said box. It’s been there about 6 months now.
I won’t upgrade, because of the subscription that’s reportedly coming. There was an article here at FR that pointed out someone found a subscription-type file in the code; days later almost on cue, MS announced it will be beta charging $7 for ‘enterprise’. So, I’m fine with not upgrading if it means I get to keep MS’s little fingers off my credit card.
Wise up Microsoft.
I’ve spent the last year trying to prevent my business customers and my home users from having their livelihoods destroyed by trying to prevent the nearly unstoppable invasion of their critical IT systems by the Windows 10 virus.
Honestly I think the big thing that killed them was their focuses — I imagine if they could put out a fully verified Windows OS* they could really market its stability — formal verification can lead to proving properties as "no remote code execution" ('hacking'), "no unexpected termination" (crashing), and no runtime exceptions (controlled crashing) if it's complete. (See here for a paper on two guys that did this for a DNS-server.)
* -- They did a fully verified [as type-safe] OS called Verve in their R&D. (Link)
Did it fail its own metric, or did it simply fail to live up to a boast? In other words, did Microsoft ever say something along the lines of, “We need this to sell a billion devices by mid-2018 or we’re screwed” or something more like, “Hell, we won’t even be shocked if this sells a BILLION units by 2018!”
So people don’t think I’m defending Microsoft, I’m still in shock how Edge ever made it past beta testing.
Try opening up Task Manager, see if you can see its icon on the Applications tab, if you can then right-click and end task. (You can use the "Switch To" button to confirm it if you're not sure.)
That said, it might not appear in the Applications tab.
You can also try Never10, but I haven't used it and so don't know how well it works.
I think that when Windows users found out that Windows 10 would be a per-month rental basis in the next year or so had something to do with it.
They set a clear, unequivocal, do-this-or-we-all-look-like-fools GOAL. An installation (not sales) goal of One Billion Things (computers, mobiles, tablets, devices) that contacted Microsoft at least once a month.
Obviously it's not a billion sold (paid) copies, since they've given 350 million or so away for "free".
I think it probably happened as a rash BOAST in a sales meeting ("I think we could see a billion of these things in 3 years"), and it got picked up by executives in upper management, and it became a formal GOAL.
I doubt they actually did much research to see if it was possible. "One billion" is a very suspiciously round number. Why not 900 million?
I don't think they're "screwed" per se, but they do look awfully foolish, first for making the boast, and then for failing to accomplish it (granted, they haven't failed yet strictly speaking, but they've admitted there's not a chance in hell of making it).
Biggest Micro$oft screw-up IMHO was their Windows phone. That would have added a lot of WP10 devices and cross-platform commonality. But, they decided to focus on HW instead of SW and carrier support, which has never been their thing, and only ended up destroying Nokia and its future in the process.
Now the only choices in smartphone land are devices from the even more uber-lib-run Apple and Google empires of anti-freedom and love for big government.
That and the abject failure of Windows phones/devices to make any dent in the marketplace. I think Microsoft was pulling future sales numbers for Windows Phone out of their collective ass, and instead they fell flat.
We agree on that -- the "failure" is merely the failure to accomplish a highly-hyped and very visible/public goal. But that matters tremendously to sales people and the markets that hang on Microsoft's coattails.
> W10 is the best Windows yet in my opinion.
Glad you like it. I find it usable, but prefer 7 personally. Ain't it wonderful to have a choice? :-)
They cant sucker or force 650 million more machines to take their crappy spyware os?
No way. The uptake curve was pretty steep for quite a few months through end of 2015, but growth has leveled out and the projections are way short of a billion in another 2 years.
They'd have to completely disable all other versions of Windows (7, 8.x) -- as in make them stop working NOW -- to get the rest of the base over to 10.
What a crock of an article. But it is the Register which is the equivalent of the Huffington Post.
One billion is their own personal goal. Whether they get there or not is not a sign of success or failure of the OS.
The OS, as of now, is used more than all Mac and Linux versions combined and then some, in case the usuals show up to try to act like an OS on hundreds of millions of devices is a failure, while those OSs they constantly try to pimp and advertise on Windows threads, that sit at a fraction of that number are some rip-roaring success.
I swear it is like some pathetic deranged obsession of some people on FR to desperate NEED Windows 10 to somehow go away in order to personally affirm their use of Ubuntu, OSx, or some old version of Windows as if normal people actually using an OS they irrationally hate makes those inoperable.
Get over it! Like it or not, those of us that use Win10 are perfectly fine with it. Be happy with what you got and stop looking for some mythical rejection of this OS.
“Software so impressive you can’t give it away.”
It’s on 300 million devices. This article purposely left that out.
Both Linux and OSx (given away too) are on far fewer.
So in essence you can say that for both of those far more credibly.
I upgraded to Windows 10 on my former laptop and it was a horrendous experience - constant upgrades of my system every few days for an hour at a time. Trying up my machine. This was a constant problem, I finally took it to my local computer shop and said, get it off my machine. At this point, he talked me into getting new laptop. All to get rid of Windows 10. He said his other customers were screaming about it too. The constant upgrades were to inject spy stud into my machine so they could track my browsing history, he said.
“I think that when Windows users found out that Windows 10 would be a per-month rental basis...”
It isnt.
“constant upgrades of my system every few days for an hour at a time.”
I have 4 Windows 10 machines.
They do not upgrade every few days for an hour at a time. Only one has even done an upgrade and that was at most 5 minutes.
“I finally took it to my local computer shop and said, get it off my machine. At this point, he talked me into getting new laptop. “
I would too! These guys know that people that don’t take the time to ask questions to set their machine up to run more to their liking, or dont care to learn how these things work, can be suckered into blowing money needlessly on a new machine to “fix” their problems.
And “inject spy stud”?
Seriously, people, stop taking your machines to these “repair shops” you find in the yellow pages. They are just ripoff artists that prey on novices and will tell you whatever goofy stuff you want to hear in order to get you to toss money at them.
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