Analysts have warned Windows 10 end of life plans could spark a global torrent of e-waste, with millions of devices expected to be scrapped in the coming years. 

Research from Canalys shows that up to 240 million PCs globally could be terminated as a result of the shift over to Windows 11, raising critical questions about device refreshes and the responsibility of vendors to extend life cycles.

    • it was a false/inaccurate quote, afaik, but my thinking after hearing it was…

      yea, last one we’ll buy, everything after will be a subscription.

      might be ‘postponed’ a few versions (my guess is whatever’s after 12), but i’m certain that’s still microsoft’s end goal: subscriptions and only subscriptions.

      • At the 2015 Ignite conference, Microsoft employee Jerry Nixon stated that Windows 10 would be the “last version of Windows”, a statement reflecting the company’s intent to apply the software as a service business model to Windows, with new versions and updates to be released over an indefinite period

        Doesn’t seem like a false quote

        • But incorrectly quoted as “Microsoft promised…”. It was one low-tier Microsoft employee who said it once, in a side note of a conference talk that was not about the future of Windows.

          • He is a Senior Software Development Engineer and was a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft, the latter of which apparently translates to press person. So not low-tier but probably side note

            • A developer evangelist is not a press person, but a developer that gives talks to other developers. I didn’t find any specific numbers, but Microsoft probably has hundreds of them. And anyway you wouldn’t expect that kind of announcement to be made by anyone who isn’t like C-level, in a presentation made specifically for that fact, accompanied by a big marketing campaign, and so on.

              • A lot of countries also have hundreds of press people, and being the last version they’ll release doesn’t sound like a very marketable thing or something you should market, plus the media already spread the evangel by storm