Windows 10 Hits Half a Billion Users

| Technology

Windows 10 Hits Half a Billion Users

Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella kicked off their big conference by announcing that their operating system Windows 10 now powers 500 million devices every month.  

Microsoft announced this massive milestone during the keynote address at their annual Build Developers Conference.

Microsoft’s CEO said “Think about the 500 million Windows 10 devices that you can now reach through the Windows Store, that reach is what's going to drive our ecosystem going forward. It's going to give each one of you more of an audience, more users, more engagement in a secure way.”

It may not be considered the greatest accomplishment by Microsoft fans considering how everyone felt about Windows 8 and 8.1; however the numbers have increased significantly since last September, when Microsoft claimed that they had 400 million active monthly devices using Windows 10.

This new milestone is half way towards the one billion Windows 10 devices that Microsoft set as a July 2018 goal; however the company did renounce that target saying it was unreachable in July 2016. 

Microsoft also shared some of their other growth numbers at this year’s annual Build Developers Conference for their virtual assistant Cortana and Microsoft Office.

The commercial version of Office 365 now has 100 million monthly active users.

And Microsoft’s virtual personal assistant Cortana which was released back in 2014 now has over 141 monthly active users. This figure was a little vague and Microsoft didn’t mention whether this number was including Cortana users typing queries into the Cortana box or actually just speaking to the digital assistant.

Luke Stanley