Microsoft is edging ever closer towards its target of having Windows 10 on over a billion devices across the globe, and the software giant has just confirmed that the OS is now present on over 700 million pieces of hardware.to this article, also from HotHardware:
Microsoft just announced a new milestone for its Windows 10 operating system: it is now installed on over 700 million active devices worldwide. This is an increase of 100 million from the last time that Microsoft gave a status update back in late November 2017.The two articles look almost identical, but there's a crucial difference: TechRadar's article was posted today, while HotHardware's article was posted back in June, about a month after TechCrunch posted this article, also citing statistics from Microsoft:
At its Build developer conference, Microsoft today announced that just under 700 million devices now run Windows 10. Almost exactly a year ago, that number stood at 500 million. In addition, the company also today noted that Office 365 now has 135 million monthly active commercial users, up from 120 million last October.That's right, Microsoft have now "announced" exactly the same Windows 10 adoption milestone on three separate occasions, in three separate months. Which raises the question: Why does anyone still treat Microsoft's self-aggrandizing "statistics" as being even slightly accurate, reliable, or newsworthy?
More specifically, why is TechRadar posting about this? Why are they still talking about Windows 10 hitting the "magic billion" mark, when even Microsoft doesn't mention the embarrassing billion number anymore?
Of course, originally, Microsoft wanted to get Windows 10 on a billion devices in three years post-launch, or around mid-2018, so that didn’t happen (although it fairly quickly became clear that this was an unrealistic target).
Still, hitting 700 million in just over three years isn’t a world away from the magic billion, although Microsoft isn’t making much noise about this achievement, with it flying pretty much under the radar at Ignite.That Microsoft is lying with statistics, yet again, isn't newsworthy. They do this with some regularity, massaging the definitions of different statistics to suit their needs of the moment, and releasing whatever numbers they please, as many times as they please, in an effort to keep up the appearance of momentum. They're hardly the only publicly-traded company to do this, either; most of them engage in some level of the practice (hint: the moment some company starts talking about their earnings per share, rather than their total revenue, start looking for an opportunity to sell your shares).
But why do tech bloggers, in particular, keep falling for it? In a sphere where the status quo changes constantly, and accurate, up-to-date information is essential, why are journalistic standards so damned low?
That's not merely a rhetorical question; I'd really like to know.