Now, that isn’t to say that Windows 10 adoption isn’t still impressive; 350 million monthly devices is a great figure – and that’s up 50 million from the last time the company reported figures in May.
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The company unveiled the target when it launched Windows 10 previous year, indicating that it would make the latest Windows operating system by far the most popular the company has ever released. The company this week unveiled its very first Windows 10 smartphone, though it’s one that might be sold only in Japan: the SoftBank 503LV.
Microsoft’s mobile strategy is another reason for its failure to hit the one billion device goal.
This whole tease of Pokémon GO potentially appearing on Windows 10 Mobile started after some users started sending in feedback to Microsoft, asking them to release the game for their own platform.
But growth has been slower than expected because fewer people are buying new PCs and many who have older versions of Windows don’t care enough to update to Windows 10.
If you are Windows 7 or 8.1 user, you can upgrade by clicking this link to Microsoft’s official upgrade page.
The special enterprise tier called “Windows 10 Enterprise E3” will be joining Microsoft’s Assure and Office 365 as subscription service.
Other new features coming out with the Anniversary Update include Windows Ink, a digital pen application that enables users to write on their devices as they would on paper; power-saving improvements for Edge; and new features for gaming. However, the company added that Windows 10 was off to the hottest start in history, with over 350 million monthly active devices.
Microsoft acknowledged “it will take longer” to get Windows 10 on a billion devices, but didn’t set a new timetable.
Kleynhans also faulted a shrinking PC market for contributing to Microsoft’s problems. “So from our point of view, we weren’t expecting phones to contribute much to that billion, but maybe [Microsoft was] expecting more”. “This new subscription model is not associated with our current upgrade offering or applicable to the Windows 10 consumer edition”, a Microsoft spokesperson told PC World.
“Extensions in Windows 10 Mobile was always iffy, due to limited resources and user interface restrictions”, notes MSPowerUser.
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“The free upgrade offer will end on July 29th and we want to make sure you don’t miss out”.
