By any measure, Windows 10 has been successful for Microsoft and now it is reported that they have reached the 100 million install base plateau in only a few months since its release. Petri is reporting that their insiders in Redmond are reported that the next generation of Windows has hit 100 million installs which would mean that in the last 30-odd days they have added some 25 million installs to the count. This clearly makes Windows 10 the fasted adopted release of Windows to date and while one can argue free upgrades has helped that cause, it is still an important number for the company given their massive and often notoriously slow enterprise adoption rate.
Prior to the release of Windows 10 the company said they wanted to get to 1 billion installs in three years and at 100 million installs, they are 10% to that mark in only a little over 2 months. It is also important to note that this is prior to any Windows 10 Mobile releases – which hasn’t happened yet – so once that is available, the install numbers will only climb.
The Windows 10 Start Menu
Microsoft for their part have not officially announced this milestone but likely will do so at their October 6th event next week. That even should include the announcement of Windows 10 Mobile being released along with two new Lumia devices. We should also see the Surface Pro 4 announced and likely will have some other tidbits from other OEMs like Dell, HP and Lenovo.
What remains a bit of a mystery is how the enterprise base – Microsoft’s strongest install base – has adopted Windows 10. Enterprises are notoriously slow at adopting new versions of Windows and many skipped Windows 8 and 8.1 because of the user experience on that release and frankly the stability of Windows 7 was outstanding. Microsoft has made it easier for enterprises to update to Windows 10 and undoubtedly a mix of these 100 million installs are in the enterprise space although the bulk will be consumers.
