To say that Microsoft’s plan to hit one billion Windows 10 devices within three years is ambitious would be an understatement. Even though Windows 10 is going to be free for most people, that doesn’t change the fact that the Windows platform still has a massive problem: there just aren’t enough apps. Microsoft has a plan to fix this, however, one that involves making it ridiculously easy for developers to port their Android or iOS apps over to Windows 10.
Microsoft has some very high ambitions for Windows 10. The company announced today at its annual Build conference that it wants to have the new operating system running on one billion devices within the next three years, a feat that is unheard of for just about any platform. But how will they get there? It helps that Windows 10 is going to be a free upgrade for Windows users. But that doesn’t address a key downside of the Windows ecosystem: The platform, which has more than 500,000 apps thus far, still doesn’t have nearly as many apps as iOS (1.2 million, at last count) or Android (1.3 million). Developers are slow to build out Windows versions of their new apps, and Microsoft plans to change that. How do you fix a problem like this? Microsoft’s bet is on giving developers streamlined, cross-platform-friendly tools to build apps as easily as possible. And it looks like it may be onto something.