What To Expect Next From Windows 10

Microsoft announced that will have the big Windows 10 boost out last 12 November. The company is calling it the "first major update" to Windows 10 for both normal PCs and tablets.

At its most basic, Microsoft wants to better position Windows 10 — its new operating system — for both consumers and enterprise clients. If it fails to find adoption with either, the success of the recently released code will be likely nil. Such are the stakes.

Up front, in a blog post, the company indicated that "Windows 10 also starts rolling out to Xbox One today, and select mobile phones soon." That is both encouraging, and not. It is good that the larger long-discussed Windows Everywhere strategy is still in place — that’s the Xbox piece — but also slightly disappointing that the Windows 10 for “mobile phones” element remains in the future. I suppose that the firm is another holiday season down.

But first a game with the Xbox. Here’s the official verbiage [Emphasis: TechCrunch]:

"
With the New Xbox One Experience, Xbox One will update to be powered by Windows 10, providing faster experiences. Windows 10 makes all your gaming better with a consistent gaming experience across devices by extending Xbox Live to every screen. You can now get into multiplayer sessions and Parties faster, your most-used content is more readily available, and you can find gaming experiences tailored to your favorite titles more easily."

As everyone might have heard by now, large corporate clients are an important constituency of Microsoft’s bottom line. Given that obvious reality, Microsoft is more than a little focused on getting those customers onto its new platform. Again, a house divided cannot stand, and the software shop needs both folks, and folks’ bosses on board to succeed.

So, new features. In short the new bits are designed to help companies’ IT crews better manage PCs on their networks, which might disappoint more adventurous employees, but given who Microsoft in fact sells to, the resulting content is as surprising as mud in a corn maze.

Here’s the core language [Emphasis: TechCrunch]:

"Windows Update for Business, provides IT controls over the deployment of updates within their organizations, while ensuring their devices are kept current and their security needs are met, at reduced management cost. Features include setting up device groups with staggered deployments and scaling deployments with network optimizations.

Windows Store for Business provides IT a flexible way to acquire, deploy, manage and use apps – both public and private line of business. Organizations can create their own private catalog – a store within the public Business Store – where they can define the list of the public and line-of- business apps available."

The company also announced new mobile device management features — hello, Good! — for Windows 10. Mobile, it seems, remains a thing.

Microsoft also announced that there are 12 million "business PCs" running Windows 10. That is up from 8 million at last count. The company did not update its 110 million total device figure. Provided that you have both fingers and toes, you can add a few things together to get new numbers.