Eric Rainville promoted to Senior Technician

With substantial growth in his technical knowledge and responsibilities, as well as his consistent, can-do attitude, we are pleased to announce that Eric Rainville, a Bryley team member since 2014, is now a Senior Technician.

Donald Trump’s potential impact on technology

Lawrence Strauss, Strauss and Strauss

Gavin Livingstone, Bryley Systems Inc.

People expect that President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory, combined with a Republican Congress, will mean big changes. Because organizations depend on technology, what can be foreseen concerning the tech fields, based on Donald Trump’s campaign statements and on the team he is gathering around him?

In the election’s immediate aftermath, some of the biggest tech-sector stocks’ lost value (which has since changed with the more-recent rise in US stock markets), possibly due to campaign rhetoric where Donald Trump threatened to look into Amazon for monopolistic behavior and tweeted that Americans should boycott Apple for its refusal to help the FBI unlock the iPhone used in the California terrorist attack. He also reminded us of the possibility of a Google election-bias in its search returns. (Google employees have become President Obama’s top tech officials and Google employees visit the Obama White House about once a week, 10x as often as employees from comparable businesses.)1

President-elect Trump appointed Jeff Eisenach and Mark Jamison to reshape the policies of the FCC, which just last year, in a 3 to 2 vote, passed the so-called Open Internet rules. (These rules are somewhat based on the concept of “net neutrality” where the Internet is considered a utility and all Internet traffic is treated equally.) Eisenbach, Jamison, and many others believe these rules were poorly constructed and oppose them on the grounds that they could lead to government overreach with greater consumer costs and reduced investment by business.

The Wall Street Journal, in an Op Ed page2, discussed President-elect Trump’s position in more than 500 companies, of which about 125 do business around the world. Most of these successful businesses are related to real-estate development, hotels and golf courses.3 So, how do such interests intersect with the tech sector?

One way may be gleaned from Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and the President-elect’s most vocal booster in the tech world, who told Forbes4 “it’s hard to overstate … Jared [Kushner]’s role in the campaign.” Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with a family background in commercial real estate, brought to the campaign (per Forbes) advanced computer-based selling techniques like machine learning and micro-targeting. Forbes reports that Kushner learned about these methods through his interactions with Silicon Valley.

Jared founded a start-up, technology-oriented business, Cadre, with his brother, Joshua. Cadre makes buying and selling interests in commercial property akin to a blend of shopping on Amazon mixed with online stock trading. This NYC business has the kind of unique product with a vast upside that it is attracting top tech talent away from Google, Apple, Twitter and others.5

Cadre is a reinvention of that marketplace through technology. And what policies would a tech startup desire? Among the things it, and businesses in general, need are low interest rates to finance investment. And, Donald Trump has a unique opportunity to keep interest rates low with two vacancies on the Fed’s seven-member Board of Governors and the two chairs’ terms expiring in 2018. During the September debate, Donald Trump called out the Fed, saying “When they raise interest rates, you’re going to see some very bad things happen, because they’re not doing their job.”6 So, the president-elect’s vision is a Fed that keeps interest rates low, which could continue to spur business and technology investment.

Similarly, Donald Trump promised in May to dismantle the 2010 Federal financial regulations known as Dodd-Frank, which according to Donald Trump, “makes it very hard for bankers to loan money for people to create jobs, for people with businesses to create jobs.”7

Donald Trump wants to shrink the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. And he has floated the idea of tax incentives to repatriate monies businesses currently have invested overseas.8

One of the issues that Donald Trump took up during his campaign, was the idea of US workers being replaced by foreign workers. And directly impacting the tech sector are H1B visas, as many Silicon Valley companies train non-US citizens that enter the US on H1B visas. Donald Trump suggested attaching fees to the H1B that would make it less appealing for businesses to seek non-US employees.

The H1B visa issue does not have any effect on outsourcing overseas, a major issue for businesses and their workers; Donald Trump has not yet directly addressed outsourcing.9 However he did spend a lot of time addressing the loss of US manufacturing and the imbalance of trade with China in particular. The solutions he’s proposed include changing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a 45% tariff on Chinese goods.

These are complex issues, and China’s 1990 inclusion in the WTO has given us everything from cheap, dollar-store junk to computers and cell phones. Because small goods are no more expensive to consumers than they were in the eighties, economists Robert Lawrence and Lawrence Edwards estimate that trade with China returns $250 a year to every American.10 However, Mr. Lawrence also calculates that between 2000 and 2007, Chinese imports caused about a third of the 484,000 annual manufacturing job losses, with productivity increases due to technology making up the bulk of the remaining losses.11

Donald Trump’s road-blocks to free trade are opposed by many who depend on the cheap, foreign manufacturing and, to a lesser extent, foreign markets. Creating barriers to imports suggests our partners may respond in kind, so the methods proposed for doing this may not have the desired effect.

Conversely, it is interesting that his top Secretary of State pick (as of this writing), Mitt Romney, is seen as welcoming trade agreements during his 2012 campaign.12

One thing is evident; investors have responded to Trump’s campaign promises pushing the Dow past 19,000 for the first time and Small Cap stocks (generally understood to be the riskiest) are seeing their largest gains by percentage.11

Generally, the upcoming Trump Administration will likely favor business investment and development, which should enhance technology research and business overall. However, the effects may impact technology companies unevenly, with likely short-term winners and losers.

REFERENCES

1http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-could-rig-the-2016-election-121548

2http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trump-family-political-business-1479426984

3https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/29/the-myth-and-the-reality-of-donald-trumps-business-empire/

4http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/#4d6e2de62f50

5http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-cadre-and-how-to-invest-in-its-real-estate-deals-2016-6

6http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-22/trump-looks-to-put-stamp-on-fed-in-first-months-of-presidency

7http://fortune.com/2016/05/18/trump-dodd-frank-wall-street/

8http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/how-trumps-likely-tax-reforms-will-impact-tech-sector.html

9http://www.computerworld.com/article/3140166/it-outsourcing/trump-tapped-the-viral-anger-over-h-1b-use.html

10http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21695855-americas-economy-benefits-hugely-trade-its-costs-have-been-amplified-policy

11http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/22/americas-smallest-stocks-are-biggest-winners-post-trump.html

12http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/11/17/mitt-romneys-foreign-policy/

Bryley Basics: Troubleshooting

Gavin Livingstone, Bryley Systems Inc.

Whether smartphone, tablet, PC, or notebook, troubleshooting a problem should follow these basic steps:

  • Research
  • Change one
  • Document all

Research – Why reinvent the wheel? Break the problem down into a keyword-rich statement and take advantage of your favorite search engine. Sometimes, reordering the keywords can provide a better search.

If this yields poor, inconsistent, or inconclusive results, ask a colleague, contact the manufacturer, or call Bryley Systems.

Change one – I’m always tempted to change five or 10 things at the same time, convinced that this will yield a quick solution; I’m hoping that by clicking everything in sight, something positive happen: I am frequently disappointed.

A better approach is to pick the most likely/obvious/basic solution, make this one change, test it thoroughly, and then verify the results before moving on.  In this fashion, you eliminate each possibility –preferably from greatest to lowest probability – to avoid muddling the solution and possibly breaking something else.

Document all – It’s not much use to change anything if you don’t remember your sequence; you can end-up in a death spiral of repeating the same steps, over and over, with the same, undesired, result.

Documenting can take the form of written, typed or recorded notes; whatever is easy and quick, but include enough information to ensure a successful conclusion and to assist if you run into the same situation in the future.

Many thanks to Karl Palachuk of Small Biz Thoughts for his inspiring October 2016 article “Troubleshooting – The Rules”.

Wi-Fi® is not Wireless Fidelity

Garin Livingstone and Gavin Livingstone, Bryley Systems Inc.

Wi-Fi is not an abbreviation for wireless fidelity1; it is a trademarked phrase that refers to wireless communication between electronic devices and a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) based on the IEEE 802.11x standards.

Wi-Fi is brought to us by the Wi-Fi Alliance®, a worldwide network of companies with the mission to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi globally.  The Wi-Fi Alliance tests and certifies that WLAN equipment meets its stated standards.

Current standards include:

  • 11g
  • 11n
  • 11ag

Speeds have grown substantially, now rocketing up to a potential 1,300Mbps using the latest WiGig™, 802.11ac, standard (although actual performance is typically significantly less than its potential).

wifi-standard

At their core; wireless networks are less secure than wired networks (since a potential intruders does not need a physical connection), although encryption technologies (Wi-Fi Protected Access or WPA and WPA2) exist to secure WLANs.

Large-scale Wi-Fi implementations include:

  • City-wide Wi-Fi – Free Wi-Fi provided in St. Cloud, FL, Sunnyvale, CA, etc.
  • Campus-wide Wi-Fi – Wi-Fi throughout a campus environment

1See ‘Wireless Fidelity’ Debunked by Naomi Graychase of WiFi Planet.

2See WikipediA IEEE 802.11.

What Does a Virtual CTO Do for Your Company?

By A. Baker, Inside Sales Specialist

Virtual CTO = Trusted Advisor = An Essential IT Service!

Technology advances are continually changing. Is your business leveraging these changes to deliver a true competitive advantage?

While the position of CTO (Chief Technology Officer) is a key role for any business, not every organization warrants a full-time person in this position. Many smaller businesses, from a cost perspective, may not employ a full-time CTO because the question they ask is “can our business afford this overhead?”

Small to midsized organizations compete with much larger , well financed companies. However, they may lack the internal resources, especially when it comes to technology management, required to be competitive.

At Bryley Systems, we believe that SMBs (Small and Midsized Businesses) are the backbone of our economy and our prosperity. And although it’s common for SMB employees to wear multiple hats, many wouldn’t be comfortable leading the technology operations. Bryley Systems has created a way for SMBs to adopt a CTO into their organization without the associated overhead cost and responsibilities normally associated with that role.

A Virtual CTO from Bryley will bridge the gap between the business vision and the more technical decisions needed to be made to support those goals. Bryley has a 30-year proven track record across many business sectors. We’re able to communicate in a language that is easily understandable to ensure that our clients can access the technology required for critical business initiatives.

Bryley’s services are at the forefront of technology and are backed by solid experience. Our tailored offerings are focused from client to client, depending upon their IT needs and business planning. Objectives are achieved, risks are managed appropriately, and the organization’s resources are used responsibly, particularly in the areas of computers, office networks, Cloud selections, software selection, and Wide Area Networks.

The cost effective solution to your CTO dilemma, one that addresses the importance of having a CTO without the overhead, is our virtual CTO . Our technology experts are available to you at all times, at an affordable cost, tailored to your specific environment.

Our Virtual CTO will:

  • Enable you to make informed technology decisions and efficiently manage technology within your organization.
  • Bring expert advice to bear on all your technology requirements and ensure proper documentation of all business processes.
  • Ensure a high return on investments (ROI) for all your technology investments.
  • Save on opportunity costs by managing all your technology issues and enabling you to focus on your business.
  • Audit all aspects of technology and ensure your peace of mind.
  • Manage all your IT vendor relationships and negotiate with vendors for all your technology purchases.
  • And much more.

Have the best of both worlds – strategic IT insight and tailored professional advice with an affordable financial commitment.

For more information about the Virtual CTO and Bryley’s full array of Managed IT Services, please contact us at 978-562-6077 or by email at ITExperts@Bryley.com. We’re here for you.

 

Bryley Basics: Why do my outbound emails show up as spam?

Anna Darlagiannis and Gavin Livingstone, Bryley Systems Inc.

I just got a call from a prospect; he notes that his emails are showing up as spam and his email recipients now think he is a spammer.  This is a topic that many email-oriented organizations experience.

Unfortunately, with ransomware growing more common, spam-filtering efforts are getting more aggressive, which makes it even easier to be labeled a spammer and then blacklisted.  Is it a losing battle?

Spam is unsolicited/unwanted bulk email; it is often easily identified, but can also be a bit ambiguous, making it difficult to separate desired email from undesired.

Spam filters, both free-standing (Reflexion, MimeCast, Proofpoint, etc.) and built-ins (spam-deterrents built into Google Gmail and Microsoft Office365) use various algorithms and keyword searches to review incoming email, apply a spam “score”, and then block those that exceed a specific threshold.  In addition, they blacklist repeat offenders considered spammers, effectively preventing the source emailer from reaching their intended audience.

Subject-line triggers are a significant issue; using words like “Free” or “Viagra” in your email subject line (and within the body of your email) can easily get your message labeled as spam.  Send this email to hundreds of recipients will get you blacklisted as a spammer.

In addition, these are other common email-spam identifiers:

  • Generic greetings
  • Grammatical and spelling errors
  • Unusual use of capitals or punctuation (BUY!!!)

Here’s how to stay off the spam-filter radar:

  • Avoid attachments
  • Check spelling and grammar
  • Provide an unsubscribe option
  • Avoid certain keywords1 and subject-line triggers

1Please see The Ultimate List of Email SPAM Trigger Words by Karen Rubin of Hubspot on January 11, 2012.

Michael Carlson, Bryley Systems’ Chief Technology Officer, surpasses 20 years of service

DSCN0527Mike Carlson celebrates his 20th year as Chief Technology Officer at Bryley Systems Inc., an award-winning, Managed IT Services firm based in Hudson, MA.  Mr. Carlson has extensive knowledge in both local and wide-area network design and implementation.  He is a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS), a VMware Technical Solutions Professional (VTSP), and a Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA).

Since 1987, Mike is the fourth Bryley Systems team member to be recognized for over 20 years of service.

How the Web is Won – Real-Life Tips for Getting Highly Ranked by Google

Lawrence Strauss

Google has by far the most comprehensive data on the web.  Its business is virtually completely dependent on people using its search engine.  This means it has an enormous interest in keeping searchers satisfied, that neither an upstart nor Microsoft overtakes it (as it did to AltaVista).  And, given its wealth, it purchases the best talent to constantly improve its search function, continually fulfilling the promise of artificial intelligence while acting less like a malleable machine1.

And if you want sales on the Internet, given the market share we surfers have granted it, there’s no avoiding Google.

So how can you get your site highly ranked by Google? The answer:  SEO (Search Engine Optimization) developed in the wake of the explosive growth of the web.

Twenty years ago there was no “Optimization”; you were trying to appeal to the fledgling Yahoo’s employees, who could manage to look at and review every site. But when machines supplanted people because of web-page volume, the software could be fooled with myriad techniques, including the popular and persistent keywords:meta tags. (Please see Search Engine madness by Lawrence Strauss in the April 2016 edition of Bryley Information and Tips.)

Because its business is built almost exclusively on search results, Google got much better at understanding site owners and seeing through their desire to be ranked first, and their techniques to get there.  So what’s come about is a return to the only really timeless technique, memorably expressed by Phil Frost; the Golden Rule of SEO is create the web page you would want to find if you were searching.

But first a diversion into much less poetic territory; like life itself, Google isn’t fair.

Big business breaks the rules all the time and Google rewards it with the best rankings.  Take for example the Microsoft-founded travel site Expedia:  Expedia was penalized (i.e. knocked down on some search results) by Google for violating its rules about manufacturing in-bound links.  (In-bound links, or links on other sites pointing to Expedia, are meant to be understood by Google’s PageRank as independent votes that boost Expedia’s credibility.)

Why does Google, if it’s interested in serving searchers with good information, reward a page like that?  It has been suggested it is because if Expedia were missing from search results where people would expect to find it, people would doubt whether Google search was working correctly.

So, small businesses are being made to adhere to standards that big businesses can ignore.

If, according to Google, nobody much would notice if your business is missing from the results, and you violate Google’s Quality Guidelines, Google can algorithmically exact a penalty on your site.  These penalties (with over 200 criteria) are not so easy to clear up.  On the bright side in this vein, one of the best things you can do for your business in Google search, and your business in the world, is to build it, or to use the buzz-word, build its “brand” – so that it cannot be ignored. Then it will slough off Google Guidelines like it was launched by Bill Gates.

What exactly is a “Brand”?

I just saw a memorable branding of the bad guys by a red-hot metal bat-symbol in the Batman vs Superman movie. The word comes to business from livestock hide-marking.  And it’s because of this connection that business-people understandably focus on the logo; David Ogilvy taught advertising agencies in the 1980s, an already decades-old chant:  “If your client groans and sighs, make his logo twice the size.”  Ogilvy was grumpy about it, because a symbol is really an almost inconsequential part of doing business.  And, as concerns our topic, symbols are unreadable, and so, useless, to Google search, demonstrating that there is much more to the idea of “brand” to get a good Google rank.

It’s hard to argue against market-dominance being a factor in having a business that is acknowledged with a top position by Google.  But there are great brands that exist in every industry, that win the rankings and sales appropriate to their business size and model.  Bear this in mind when thinking about building your brand: establish its role in the market (or sometimes alternatively called, “mission,” or sometimes “vision”) and values (what are the means by which the business will fulfill its role).

The more consistently these ideas are both articulated verbally and non-verbally, and most important, repeatedly put into practice, the meaning of the brand will be revealed.  And how will it be revealed?  Ever heard the expression, a business has the customers it deserves?  Well the meaning of your brand will end up being reflected back to the business in the form of recognition. And recognition can take many forms:

  • Conversations on social media,
  • Reviews on Facebook pages and other websites,
  • Awards from trade associations, links from industry peers,
  • Citations in industry publications, and so on.

(It’s also not a bad idea to get the ball rolling by asking industry colleagues and customers on occasion to discuss via social media a page you’ve added to your site.)  The main benefit of all this is that your organization gains in reputation and therefore credibility (and along this path, a good Google rank), and therefore sales or for a nonprofit, another form of fulfillment of its role.

They Call Me the Seeker

Most of the web has been built ignoring data about how people search. And that’s as it should be.  For instance, if you have a specific story to tell, if you are building a page or site for a specific community that is being directed to the site in other ways (this newsletter, for example, is created to help the Bryley community), or if you have research to publish.

But if you want your site to be found by strangers among the billions of web pages, consider how people are using the web, which leads back to the idea of getting a good ranking by thinking like a searcher.  Start by asking yourself:

  • In my field what are the questions that Internet searchers are asking?
  • What is the motivation behind the searchers’ questions:
    • Are they looking for free advice only?
    • Are they looking to see who is an expert that they can hire?
    • Are they looking to connect with people with similar interests?
  • How are the searchers asking those questions:
    • What are the popular resources for those kinds of queries?
    • Why do you think those sites are popular?
    • What words are people using to search?

If you’re not, get familiar with Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner; for the last couple of years you’ve needed to sign up for an AdWords account to access it and it is designed for Google’s paid search-results program, but the data is derived from Google searches, and so helpful in understanding what’s being searched for.

One of the best ways to use the Keyword Planner is to enter a top-Google-ranking competitors’ site in the field revealed after you select Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category.  Google usually does a great job in parsing the site, giving few irrelevant returns, but it gives a lot of returns.  But these can be filtered in the menu to the left, entering, for example 1000 searches/month and a minimum bid of $1.50, as recommended by Dan Shure in the AdvancedWebRanking blog.  This will minimize the keywords that no one searches for and reveal those few that businesses value.

Once you have a keyword or keyword phrase about which you’re planning to build your page, now what?  How do you avoid having a page like Expedia’s keyword-stuffing example that violates Google’s Quality Guidelines, yet still able to attract the interest of Google?

Short answer: put the keyword or keyword phrase in the title tag of your page.  Also include it in the “keyword:description” meta-tag.  This meta-tag is what Google will likely use as the search-return description under the link to your page. This meta-tag is not there to be seen by Google, but by a prospective visitor, so the description should contain the keyword or a supporting idea, be plain-English and be compelling to invite a click – after all it is these people that we’re really interested in, not Google.

Long answer: as Bill Gates said years ago, “Content is king.” And thanks to

Google’s synonym-support, the content of the page should not be redundant, but reflect the variety of terminology used to explain a given subject.  And understand that authoritative content, as Google prefers, means at least 500 words on your subject per page. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team advised, “For example, if you’re talking about a USB drive, some people might call it a flash drive or a thumb drive”.

Bear in mind the terms that people will type and think about synonyms that can fit naturally into your content.  Don’t stuff an article with keywords or make it awkward; rather, incorporate different ways of talking about a subject in a natural way.

In May 2015, Google announced that the share of search on mobile outstripped search on PCs for the first time.  With the announcement came suggestions for organizations to make their sites able to deliver information in the moment it is wanted, meaning make sure your site’s load time is speedy.  To test and improve this factor in Google rankings, Google created the PageSpeed Tools.  (To test your page-download speed, enter a web address in the field and click “Analyze”.)  The PageSpeed Score ranges from 0 to 100 points:  A higher score is better and a score of 85 or above indicates that the page is performing well.

While not a wholly comprehensive accounting of what it takes to be in the first rank of a Google search, the suggestions covered here are consistently the biggest effecters:  being the kind of organization that makes people link to its content, creating content that answers what searchers are seeking, and making sure your pages load fast.

Funnily enough, these answers are not too different than thinking about getting your page ranked twenty years ago when Dave and Jerry at Yahoo! were linking to pages manually.  But unlike then, no one sees the same results.

Search history is recorded and weighted in the results (unless a searcher opts out), and social connections are recorded and weighted in the results (unless a searcher opts out). Couple these with a physical location to get the results shown by Google and Bing.

For the web developer, strategically not much has changed, except the weight is maybe more strongly on reputation. But if you’re developing a site, how do you see the results without being affected by these filters and get a truer sense how your site is faring? You’ll have to choose these settings in your browser: Chrome, Incognito Window, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer, Private Browsing.

1 Google notes to support these statements:

$500B market capitalization.

Corridor-9 Data Room Cleanup – Before and After

We recently teamed up with our long-term business partner, Communication Link Services Corporation of Natick, to update the data room at the Corridor-9 Chamber of Commerce.

The Corridor-9 Chamber of Commerce is a business-oriented, non-profit organization servicing Westborough and local communities. Bryley Systems is a long-term member who recently began supporting their IT infrastructure.

Their data room used to look like this:

before-small

Volunteer efforts to improve it over the years did not make much of a difference; cables were disarrayed, old equipment lingered, and the visual effect was negative.

We suggested a cleanup and offered to do it without charge. It did not take much urging, and the “after” picture shows the result:

after-small

Karen Chapman, President at the Corridor Nine Chamber of Commerce, recently emailed: “Hi Gavin, Thank you so much to your team and Comlink for the outstanding job done.  It brings me great joy to walk into that room now!  Karen”.

Beauty, as always, is in the eyes of the beholder…

 

 

Can Windows 10 revitalize the PC?

With the introduction of Windows 10 this summer past, Microsoft (and its PC vendors like HP, Inc., Dell, Lenovo, etc.) are hoping for a significant surge in the sales of Windows-based desktops, notebooks, and tablets. However, the results to date have been modest at best.

Microsoft seems to have done a good job with Windows 10:

  • The update process is free (for a year), reasonably easy (for individuals, but not as much for organizations), and somewhat user-friendly. Also, updates are now “continuous”, mimicking the operating system-update policies of competitors Google and Apple. 1
  • Windows 10 is more secure with enhanced security features and improved look/touch login via Windows Hello.
  • There are new, useful features like Cortana (voice-activated assistant) and Edge (Internet browser replacing the old Internet Explorer).
  • Microsoft added built-in apps like Maps, Photos, Groove, Movies & TV, etc.
  • There are many, new, mostly free apps by third-party developers. 2
  • Reset and Refresh have been optimized for SSD drives.3
  • Some of the wrongs with Windows 8 (ie: no Start Menu) are now righted.

Windows is also somewhat of a player in mobile devices with increasing sales in Microsoft Surface (now a $1B business) and Lumina phones (purchased from Nokia), which contributes about $2B quarterly. (Although growing, these sales represent only 3% of the sales of mobile devices worldwide.) 4

These improvements seem to be part of Microsoft’s two-part mission:

  • Have Windows 10 run across as many devices and screens as possible, and
  • Make consumers love Windows 10, rather than just need it.

On the positive side:

  • Microsoft reports that Windows 10 is installed on over 110M devices to date.
  • Gartner predicts that Windows 10 installations will eclipse Windows XP and Windows 7 by 2019.

However, Windows is losing market share (and has been for some time) to other mobile devices like smartphones and tablets; there are over 2B people running Google Android or Apple iOS-based devices compared to about 1.5B running Microsoft Windows. 5

Another troubling trend: Although PC ownership is relatively stable among adults (at about 73%), PC ownership among 18 to 29 year olds dropped from 89% in 2012 to 78% in 2015. (This may change as these younger folk enter the workforce and require a full-sized keyboard and large or multiple monitors.) 6

Basically, Windows 10 is off to a good start, but only time will tell if the Windows franchise will retain its powerhouse status.

References

  1. Windows 10 is here and you can get it for free at Microsoft.com.
  2. 10 (mostly) free must-have Windows 10 apps by Paul Mah at ComputerWorld.
  3. Windows 10: Disk Optimization by Russell Smith, Petri.com.
  4. Microsoft gets hardware foothold as Surface, Lumina sales jump by Nick Statt at CNET on 1/26/2015.
  5. Windows 10 Launch Results: A Success or Fail? in the 7/31/2015 edition of The Gazette Review.
  6. Smartphones, Tablets Take Toll On PC Ownership Among Youth by Joseph Palencher from the November 3, 2015 edition of Twice.