Check out this Google Trends chart. It goes from the initial announcement of Windows 8 in September 2011 to the current month, January 2015 and shows the history of searches for “Windows 9” and “Windows 10″.
[thumbnail src=”https://www.caotica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Win10.png”]
Nobody was searching for Windows 10 until it was formally announced in September 2014.
By skipping Windows 9 entirely, it allowed Microsoft to start from scratch and to purge all Google-able bad press from their new OS.
Very clever, Microsoft marketing team. Very clever.