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Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant’s lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows’ user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.

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[–] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I could imagine a future where Windows is just a proprietary DE over a Linux system. I don’t think it’s coming anytime soon because of the development cost it would impose, but I don’t see why they would go to such efforts maintaining a system they could get for free if the desktop user base keeps shrinking. They’re just too greedy not to do that. Even the backwards compatibility with Windows software is becoming a solved problem.

Aside from my above rant, the PC is definitely fast becoming an enthusiast/business platform. I opened a retirement account the other day through my smart phone!

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    MS did a shift like that already. The shift from MS-DOS to NT was transparent to the vast majority of people to the point that most people didn't realize they were two different OSes.

    I don't see why they couldn't do it again. NTVDM was similar in concept to what wine does. Imagine if MS actively contributed to wine, or a wine like project.

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