Microsoft achieved a new milestone by selling over 200 million Windows 8 licenses in the last 15 months. Bu the numbers are still lower than its predecessor.
Microsoft's latest desktop operating system, Windows 8, has not been received well by users, but a latest announcement by a top Microsoft official suggests the OS has not been ignored completely.. While speaking at a Goldman Sachs technology conference, Thursday, Microsoft's executive VP of marketing, Tami Reller, said that the company had "surpassed 200 million licenses now on Windows 8, which is pretty stunning," according to The Verge.
The number is not that great compared to Microsoft's Windows 7 OS, which crossed 240 million licenses just after a year. But it marks a new milestone for the struggling OS, which passed 100 million license sales after six months.
The slow growth of Windows 8 is primarily credited to its Metro UI, which is comparatively hard to navigate when it comes to desktop non-touch PCs. The Redmond software giant tried addressing the series of complaints from its users through an update. The Windows 8.1 update brought back the lost Windows Start button and an option to boot directly to desktop screen without having to see the Metro UI.
These options simplified navigation for non-touch PC owners, but users continue to prefer the older OS. The company, however, plans to make the boot to desktop option as a default setting.
Moreover, Microsoft's insistence on users switching to the latest version, as the end-date for Windows XP nears, has generated criticism against Windows 8. Recently, the software giant reminded XP users to make the switch to the newest OS to stay secure on the internet.
Windows 7 accounts for 47.49 percent of all PCs running the older OS, according to NetMarketShare. Nearly 29.23 percent systems run the Windows XP, the company's oldest OS that will see its demise April 8. As for the Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, only 10.58 percent of users have their machines upgraded to the latest OS version.
Microsoft is reportedly working on pushing the first round of its Windows 8.1 update sometime in April. While the details on the changes coming with Windows 8.1 Update 1 are sketchy, some reports suggest the company is focusing on reducing system's disc usage and tweaking the interface so mouse-and-keyboard users do not have a hard time navigating.
"We will make material movement on just the footprint of the OS and what that can mean on how we can run on smaller devices," Reller said during her speech at the conference, describing the future plans of the company.
"We're being very thoughtful about what's going well, what's not going well and how do we change that," she added.
