Microsoft Concedes It Will Miss Its One Billion Windows 10 Timeline

At the Build 2015, before the release of Windows 10, Microsoft stated that they would have Windows 10 running on 1 billion devices within three years of the release of the OS. At roughly the one-year mark, the company said that they have 350 million devices running the platform but that will not be enough to reach their publicly stated goal.

Speaking to Mary Jo, Microsoft acknowledged that it will not be able to meet its original timeline that it stated at Build 2015. Specifically, the company says that “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 shortcoming is being targeted at their loss of devices in the mobile space where the company had to change their strategy up as that segment was bleeding capital. With fewer devices being sold than anticipated, it means that the one billion goal is now out of reach from the originally stated timeline.

At its core, this is really not a huge deal but more of an embarrassment that they could not reach their targets for install rate. While 350 million installs in one year is impressive, with free upgrades expiring in two weeks, the install rate will slow down dramatically after that date.

The company’s best bet for hitting one billion machines, aside from new hardware, now shifts to the enterprise where hundreds of millions of machines are still running Windows 7.