Tech giant Microsoft has delivered the afternoon keynote of the first official day of IFA 2015. No prizes for guessing what the hot topic was…
Unsurprisingly, it revolved entirely around Windows 10, the company’s latest operating system.
Nick Parker, the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s OEM division, took the stage to chat about its “mobile-first, cloud-first” software and the new generation of devices set to fuel its growth.
According to Parker, there are 75 million different devices running Windows 10 already, made up of around 90,000 unique models.
Microsoft seems to be pleased with the numbers, but expects the first figure to jump beyond the 500 million mark over the next year.
Quite simply, the company is confident that its partner manufacturers will successfully drum up interest in Windows 10 with new releases, which will be coming thick and fast over the next few months.
Parker highlighted several of the desktops, laptops and tablets he expects to sell particularly well.
In the education market, great things appear to be expected of the affordable Acer Aspire One Cloudbook and Lenovo Ideapad 100s, while Microsoft also reckons that the Dell Latitude 11 5000 2-in-1, HP Elitebook Folio 1020 and Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 460 have the potential to take the business notebook market by storm.
Meanwhile, the Dell Inspiron 24 700 Series and Asus Zen AiO S are flying the flag for Windows 10 all-in-ones.
However, what Microsoft really appears to be counting on to drive sales are 2-in-1s. Parker expects to see over a 90 per cent growth in the 2-in-1 market alone over the next 12 months. That’s ambitious.
It’s also important to mention that some of the standout devices at this year’s show have come in the Notebook department, such as the Asus ROG G752 — which Parker branded “a sick PC” — and Toshiba Radius 12.
See Also: Best Windows 10 Laptops and Tablets
“We’re really breaking boundaries when we think about pairing new software capabilities with new hardware capabilities,” said Parker.
Whether Microsoft’s plan comes together or not remains to be seen.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
