New York - Microsoft, which last year pledged to get Windows 10 on 1 billion devices within two to three years, said it will not meet that goal for its new operating system because of the dramatic reduction of its Windows phone business.
The company is still committed to the 1 billion goal, but it will take longer to achieve, Yusuf Mehdi, Windows marketing chief, said in a statement.
“Windows 10 is off to the hottest start in history with over 350 million monthly active devices, with record customer satisfaction and engagement,” Mehdi said.
“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 failure to meet the original forecast shows the continued fallout from the Windows phone strategy, in which the company acquired Nokia's handset unit and then, amid high costs and little share gains, shut down and sold the business, taking a massive writedown. Last month, Microsoft changed the way it pushes out the Windows 10 update to customers after complaints it was being forced on them or they were being nagged frequently to upgrade.
Windows chief Terry Myerson made the pledge to put Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by fiscal 2018 at Microsoft's developer conference in April 2015. The system was released in July 2015.
The change in the goal was reported earlier by ZDNet.
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