Windows 11 adoption happening twice as fast as Windows 10 because PC users just love it
India Today
Windows 11 has become one of the most-loved Windows versions as PC users are adopting it at twice the rate of adoption of Windows 10, Microsoft has announced.
Windows 11 may just have become Microsoft’s most-loved Windows version ever. In a lengthy blog post, the company took us through the past year where it talked about the performance of the Windows operating system over the past two years. Microsoft said Windows is now on 1.4 billion monthly active devices, and while this figure includes both Windows 10 and Windows 11, the latter saw the highest adoption. Windows 11 is reaching PCs and other compatible devices twice as fast as Windows 10, moving ahead of the schedule, Microsoft said.
“Today, we’re excited to share that the upgrade offer to Windows 11 is beginning to enter its final phase of availability putting us ahead of our initial plan of mid-2022,” said Panos Panay, product chief of Windows and Devices at Microsoft. “Windows 11 also has the highest quality scores and product satisfaction of any version of Windows we’ve ever shipped. Product quality was a huge focus for the team, and we took a deliberate and phased approach to how we rolled out the upgrade.”
The biggest reason for the faster adoption is that Windows 11 is available as a free upgrade to Windows 10 users. The blog post also highlighted that people are spending 40 per cent more time on their Windows 11 PCs than they did on Windows 10 devices on average. But all of these things do not mean Windows 11 has overshadowed Windows 10 in terms of active install base. Windows 11 is running on a smaller chunk of devices right now, but faster adoption shows it has scope to grow. That is despite the fact that Windows 11 does not support a wide range of PCs that run Windows 10 perfectly well.
Another reason why Windows 11 became more popular in terms of adoption is the high demand for PCs. Microsoft cited a Canalys report to announce that more than 340 million PCs were shipped in 2021, a jump of 27 per cent annually. After Windows 11 was released in October, all new PCs shipped with the new version instead of Windows 10, giving an impetus to the adoption of Windows 11 amongst PC users.
Microsoft is happy also because it did not have to make a lot of efforts to make people adopt Windows 11. At the time of Windows 10, Microsoft had to literally force users to download it. It would trick users into downloading Windows 10 through pesky advertisements in Windows 8. Windows 11 adoption has been natural, not forced.
The features of Windows 11, such as Android support, make it more lucrative than previous Windows versions. The PC-smartphone synergy is one of the highly demanded features for operating systems. Apple’s iPhone and Mac devices work seamlessly because of close integration. As Microsoft lacks a mobile phone ecosystem now, its plan to integrate Windows and Android has received a warm welcome in the form of Windows 11. Windows 11 also drove three times more traffic to the Microsoft Store that was redesigned with the new operating system.
