It's been a busy year in Redmond, with Windows 10 delivering three major
releases to 350 million active users. Here's a look back at some major
milestones and stumbles along the way, and new predictions about when
Windows 10 will hit its ambitious goal of a billion devices.
In a few weeks, Microsoft will deliver the Anniversary Update to
Windows 10, marking the third major release of its flagship OS in one
year.
By traditional Windows standards, that's practically
unheard of. But, then again, much of what's happened in Redmond during
the last year would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
For this post, I looked back at some of the major milestones along the
way, with a few lessons the Microsoft and its customers have learned.
The Windows Insider Program changes everything
Windows boss Terry Myerson gets noticeably animated when he talks about
the Windows Insider Program. "The Insider program has changed how we do
everything," he told me in a recent interview. "It's changed how we
build Windows and how we interact with customers and fans."
He's
right. Previous releases of Windows usually spent years in private
testing before finally rolling out to the public in limited preview
releases. Windows 10 radically changed that model, allowing anyone to
sign up for access to preview builds. It also, crucially, provided a
public feedback mechanism, with opportunities for other Insiders to add a
+1 to feature requests and bug reports.
In fact, the Insider program is just one facet of an even larger shift
in Windows, with different populations able to choose the bleeding edge
(Insider Fast), or a conservative, enterprise-focused release schedule
(the Current Branch for Business, available for Windows 10 Pro and
Enterprise editions) delays feature upgrades several months compared to
the Current Branch that the general public sees.
Windows 10 is certainly a response to the Windows 8 debacle, with a user experience that is less bold (in a good way) and a feedback loop that's considerably less arrogant.
Microsoft stumbles addressing privacy fears
One of the biggest changes in the "Windows-as-a-service" model is the
reliance on telemetry, which involves collecting anonymized information
about how people use Windows and, critically, when and where the
operating system fails.
The goal is certainly laudable. Microsoft has been
criticized in the past for too many releases of defective patches and
updates. With accurate real-time data about crashes and hangs, it should
be possible to find and fix problems far more quickly than in the past
A default installation of Windows 10 sets telemetry collection to
its highest level, which provided ammunition to the small but vocal
legion of Microsoft haters (and some clueless analysts), who insisted that Microsoft had built a keylogger into its new OS and was reading all your files.
None of that was true,
but the company didn't help its cause by dragging its feet for months
on formal documentation for the feature and by delivering public
statements that were too cautious and legalistic.
In an interview
this week, Windows VP Yusuf Mehdi acknowledges that "Listening to
customers and how we communicate is probably the highest-order bit --
the biggest example of how we learned. As we started to do all of these
rollouts, people were saying, 'Tell me about the privacy policy, tell me
about telemetry. What are your principles?'"
Today, he says, "We
feel great about the [privacy] policy," but admits, "I don't expect
there will ever be a day when all people say it's perfectly fine. There
will always be feedback, and we'll listen to it."
Version 1511 gets down to business
In one sense, the first feature update for Windows 10 was a proof of
concept. Version 1511, delivered in November, was the first-ever,
full-version upgrade delivered via Windows Update. Arriving only about
four months after the initial release of Windows 10, it was filled with
bug fixes but also included major new features.
Most of those features were business-focused,
but none was more important than Windows Update for Business, which
gave enterprise administrators the option to delay updates by up to four
weeks and defer upgrades by up to eight months.
"Enterprise adoption picked up after [version] 1511," Myerson tells me,
adding that the US Department of Defense's decision to adopt Windows 10
on four million desktops was "a real milestone for us".
According to Microsoft's stats, 96 percent of enterprise customers have
Windows 10 pilot programs going on. Actual adoption of Windows 10 in the
enterprise, however, is still a tiny number. That reflects the
traditionally conservative outlook of those customers and represents
both an opportunity and a threat to Microsoft, which doesn't want to see
Windows 7 turn into another XP, hanging on well past its sell-by date.
Surface bugs highlight the dilemma of the hardware ecosystem
Last October, a few months after the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft
unveiled two members of its flagship Surface line. Within days, owners
of the Surface Book were reporting serious bugs, and it was several more months before a series of driver and firmware updates fixed most of those issues.
The issues also affected the Surface Pro 4, which shipped at the same time.
Both devices were designed to be a showcase for Windows 10. As I wrote
after six months of using a Surface Pro 4, though, "I can report that it
does indeed show off Windows 10, including its occasional frustrations
and aggravations."
Most of the problems that plagued those early
adopters have now been fixed, and based on my experience with devices
from other manufacturers, Intel's Skylake processors can shoulder much
of the blame.
Since that fall release, Myerson notes, PC OEMs
have released more than 1,500 Windows 10 devices. That diversity is both
a strength and a weakness for the Windows platform, which has to
support millions of hardware configurations. I'm hearing far fewer
hardware-related complaints these days, and the latest Anniversary
Update preview release is running perfectly on Surface devices here.
(Knock on wood.)
Free upgrades mean impressive momentum
Over the past year, Microsoft has not been shy about announcing
milestones in Windows 10 adoption. After one month, it had 75 million
active users.
In January, Windows 10 crossed the 200-million threshold. By May, it was 300 million, and the most recent figure, released more than a month before the end of the free upgrade offer, was 350 million.
By the numbers, at least, that makes Windows 10 a success. Most of
those devices are being used by consumers, of course, not businesses,
but Myerson says customer satisfaction is "at an all-time high".
Momentum on the Windows 10 app front hasn't been as impressive, at least
by the numbers. Microsoft points to high-profile app releases like the
new Netflix client, but the reality is that the Universal Windows
Platform is still caught between the mobile iOS/Android juggernaut and
legacy desktop apps
So, what happens when the free upgrade offer expires? Watch those momentum-based press releases for your answer.
The market for Windows phones collapses
Windows 10 Mobile is a full-fledged member of the Windows family, built
on the same core code and capable of running many of the same universal
apps that run on desktop version. The Anniversary Update will be
available for Windows 10 phones soon after it ships for PCs.
The
trouble is -- there aren't very many of those phones in the wild, and
the supply is shrinking. Although the user base for the platform is
enthusiastic, Microsoft management telegraphed its plans weeks before
the official launch of Windows 10, with a $7.6bn write-down and massive layoffs in the phone division.
The other shoe dropped in May 2016, with CEO Satya Nadella announcing
"We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation -- with
enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum
capability, and consumers who value the same."
Those devices haven't yet appeared, and the long-rumored Surface Phone shows no signs of emerging from the mists anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the company's efforts on other platforms have increased substantially, with dozens of apps for iOS and Android appearing over the year, most of them based on cloud services like OneDrive and Office 365.
It's not just about PCs
The phone business might be moribund, but there's still optimism around other hardware coming from Redmond.
Windows 10 powers the Xbox One, which will get its own Anniversary Update this summer, along with a new, smaller console. Xbox sales have been steady, if not spectacular.
The company's acquisition of Minecraft might turn out to be a hit as well, with new versions for Windows 10 on PCs and for Xbox.
But the really big bet is HoloLens and the "mixed reality" holographic platform,
both powered by Windows 10. I had a chance to experience the HoloLens
experience under controlled circumstances at this year's Build
conference. It's genuinely exciting stuff.
Some big questions
face this new, untested, rapidly-evolving category, though: Can it
become a sustainable business, and if it can, how long will it be before
those big R&D expenditures pay off in revenue?
