Android hits 2B active devices

Remember when Microsoft was making as much noise as possible about having hit 500 million active devices, about a week ago, even though that's only halfway to the 1B active devices they need to have by the end of the year for strategic purposes? It turns out that number is even less impressive than previously thought, because Android, which just became a viable desktop OS thanks to Samsung's DeX, just hit 2 billion active users.

From c|net:

There are now more than 2 billion active Android devices, Google said at its I/O developer conference on Wednesday. It's not just popular phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8, but the TVs you watch and the cars you drive. Android has a firm lead in the mobile world, with nearly nine out of 10 phones shipped that run on Google's mobile OS.[...] While phones make up a bulk of its devices, it's starting to see a proliferation of other gadgets running on the software.

Microsoft may be in some serious trouble here, and I don't believe that their continued efforts to make "fetch" happen are going to turn this particular tide. Redmond's heavy-handed tactics have cost them a lot of consumer trust and good will, and their strategy involves actively undermining the single biggest competitive advantage that Windows has, all in an effort to imitate the business models of rivals that are all larger, and growing faster, than Microsoft itself.

Microsoft are a huge company, and Windows 10 has already spread widely enough that it won't be going away anytime soon, but if Satya Nadella and his team aren't already very nervous about this week's Android-related developments, then they should be.