Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant’s lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows’ user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.
They just had to copy the walled garden approach of the competitors, and badly at that. They could have not pursued forcing users to a Microsoft account. They could’ve avoided the telemetry and ads business(/bloat). Google has them beat there anyway. They had the more open alternative to Google and Apple but they’re trying terribly to be second fiddle to them. And now Linux has become a good enough alternative to what Windows should’ve been. They are still the choice for business machines, but they’ve been terrible with consumer devices.
Microsoft for the past 17 years: We have a monopoly, so we can just copy people and become more popular than them. Aaaany day now. Anyway day now. Any day nowwwwww…