Microsoft has launched the Windows 10 Operating System (OS) and promised shareholders that the new version of Windows will reach 1 billion users in three years, as reported by Bloomberg.
The company is banking on its 5 million bug testers, known as Windows Insiders, to make Windows 10 better and provide customer loyalty to the OS.
Reuters adds that the new OS will be available in 190 countries as a free upgrade for users with Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1.
The free upgrade offer is a calculated gamble of Microsoft that is designed to put the latest Windows version in as many devices as possible. The lost revenue would be covered by selling Office over the Internet or cloud.
Microsoft has been under intense pressure from Apple's iOS and Google's Android, both of which have been dominating the mobile market in recent years.
Bloomberg reports that under Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the company has recognized that the biggest competition for a new version of Windows has been the other offerings that Apple's iOS and Google's Android provide.
The company has hired several makers of iOS and Android business apps to better spread Microsoft's influence beyond its own operating system. The company also introduced new versions of Office apps for iOS and Android.
Microsoft also tried to make Windows 10 intuitive and inviting, as Yusuf Mehdi, Marketing Chief of Microsoft's OS division, talks about winning customers back from "other ecosystems," such as those created by Apple and Google, according to Bloomberg.
Microsoft could use a boost from its new OS.
Bloomberg adds that Microsoft reported on July 21 a $3.2 billion quarterly loss on $22.2 billion. This is due to an almost write-off of Nokia's phone business, bought by Microsoft in 2014.
Microsoft believes that the Windows 10 OS will bring in serious money.
After the earnings report, Nadella told analysts that the effects of the revenue growth, Windows 10 would generate, would mostly be felt at least two quarters from now.
Meanwhile, Microsofts' Chief Financial Officer, Amy Hood, reported in April that the Windows division revenue is now at $15 billion a year, down from 19 billion a year in 2013.
"There are massive headwinds in Microsoft's bread-and-butter PC business, making it crucial that the Windows 10 cloud approach opens up new growth avenues for the Windows business," Daniel Ives, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, told Reuters.
