Earlier this year, Microsoft revealed that the number of devices running Windows 10, which launched last July, had rapidly grown to over 200 million, including over 22 million in the enterprise and education sectors. The company said at the time that "more than 76% of [its] enterprise customers are in active pilots of Windows 10".
Today, Windows 10"s enterprise credentials have received a substantial boost as the US Department of Defense (DoD) has signed up for a major deployment of Microsoft"s latest OS.
All parts of the DoD currently using Microsoft operating systems will be upgraded to Windows 10 over the next twelve months, including over 4 million devices "from laptops to desktops to mobile devices, including Surface devices". Indeed, alongside the upgrade announcement, Microsoft also revealed today that four of its Surface devices have been certified for DoD use.
The new wave of upgrades to Windows 10 follows a memo issued last November by DoD Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen, directing its Combatant Commands, Services Agencies and Field Activities divisions "to rapidly deploy Windows 10", as Microsoft explained today, "to improve the Department"s cybersecurity, lower the cost of IT and streamline the IT operating environment."
Microsoft noted that the plan to upgrade 4 million devices in just one year is "an unprecedented move for a customer with the size and complexity of the DoD", and such a massive and rapid deployment for a government department will no doubt be seen as a significant vote of confidence in Windows 10"s security and reliability.