But that's not to say that all is well on Planet Redmond. According to no less an authority than Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella himself, there are now fewer devices running Windows (any version of) than there were just a few years ago.
From MSPowerUser.com:
Speaking to Bloomberg in a somewhat wide-ranging interview, Satya Nadella made an interesting statement on the size of the Windows ecosystem.
Besides restating his common refrain regarding Microsoft and phones, Nadella also stated that there was now 1 billion Windows users. The number is interesting from the mouth of the CEO of Microsoft, who would of course have a pulse on this important stat. It is down from the commonly assumed number of 1.5 billion PC users (stated by Microsoft themselves in 2014), and from a number previously quoted by Microsoft in 2011 of 1.25 billion users.
It suggests rather than simply being static the number of PC users are actually rapidly shrinking, which may explain why the growth of Windows 10 users has stalled at around 400-500 billion despite around 260 million PCs being sold in 2016.
That would make the Windows ecosystem a possible tie with Apple’s iOS ecosystem, which is assumed to be around 1 billion devices big, and given the trajectory likely on the way to being a distant 3rd, always a dangerous position for a Microsoft product. Nadella emphasised that Windows was important but now only one part of a diversified portfolio of products with linkages between them.Microsoft have had a lot of irons in the fire for a while now, trying to be Apple, and Amazon, and Google, all while still staying Microsoft, and all at the same time. But when the CEO of Microsoft is spinning about his own company's flagship product, its long-time #1 source of revenue, by telling you that it's not the most important thing they make anymore... well, I'm not sure exactly what that portends for Microsoft's market position or future prospects, but it can't be good. Can it?
It might be particularly bad news for Windows 10, the latest version of Microsoft's flagship. Android's dominant position in the mobile OS market has made it the #1 OS on Earth for some time now, with most analysts assuming that Android's users represented an influx of new devices, but it now seems like a loss of Windows devices may also be contributing to Android's rise. Not only is Windows 10 struggling to gain desktop market share, and slow to win Enterprise converts among larger companies, but it's usage share numbers represent a stagnant share of a Windows market that's actually contracting, rather than growing or even remaining stable.
We're two days away from new numbers from NetMarketShare, StatCounter, and the Steam Survey, so we'll find out whether Windows has started winning any more converts in the last 30 days, but these comments from Satya Nadella will certainly cast those numbers in a much different light. Whether Windows 10 resumes gaining market share or not, it seems that Microsoft's troubled flagship may be taking on more water than we knew.