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Vista sold 20m licenses in first month
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 28th March 2007
"Buy me!" - Vista is more than doubly successful compared to XP.
Whether you think Windows Vista is the slickest OS to date or you think it's a bloated piece of junk, sales figures don't lie. Windows Vista has sold twenty million legitimate licenses in its first month. That's 2*10^7 for everyone playing along at home. And it's also the most successful launch in the history of operating systems.
To make a comparison, Windows XP (widely considered a successful product launch) generated 17 million legal licenses in its first two months.
Microsoft touts the figures as a testament to the new features and security enhancements in Windows Vista, and it's probably at least partly right. Then there's a much more comprehensive advertising and pre-load campaign and (I cannot stress this enough) an open beta which allowed anyone to really try the OS on for size. Even if you didn't fool around with it personally, chances were that a friend or colleague had - and the open access coupled with proper advertising helped catapault the new version into dining-room discussion fuel around the globe.
Of course, it's also a much bigger world out there now - several entire nations have joined the digital age since XP's launch in 2002. Gartner Research made special mention that the increase shouldn't be a surprise due to the difference in computer sales. According to research, 52 million computers were sold in 2002, while over 92 million are expected this year. Of course, that's only a 77% increase - Vista sales increased 135% over XP.
Also attributing to the success was the version structure, which sales show that consumers made some pretty heavy use out of. By giving people different versions of the OS tailored to different needs, many consumers found it easy to match themselves up with a version that contained what they needed, rather than feeling like they had to overbuy. This is in contrast to what many of us in the press thought, as several of us were under the impression that too many choices might lead to confusion and a frustrated consumer walking away.
Oddly enough, we weren't the only ones expecting Vista launch problems - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said himself that launch figures may be a tad optimistic, because many people may just wait for a pirated copy. I guess we were both a little off.
Do you have a thought on Vista's spectactular launch? Tell us about it in our forums.
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And the 3 million difference over XP? In the grand scheme of things, since XPs release I reckon that increase is proportionately small, when you consider the number of PCs being bought from OEMs has increased a lot more then that.
Also, if Bit linked to the actual Press Release from Microsoft they could quote them as saying that the licenses were:
Now, I do believe that Windows Vista Express Upgrade started last year when laptops and PCs were being sold at that time. So Microsoft will have included those upgrades in their figures.
I do not know exactly when that program started but I am pretty sure that it is a fair few months ago, and as soon as Microsoft kicked off their upgrade program most users of machines that were given the upgrade voucher would have cashed them in, or the OEMs themselves would have ordered the upgrades.
Now that is cheeky of them.
And, yes, somehow, what was to be expected? Every OEM-PC out there must be Vista now I think. So sure they would sell a lot of copies ... or force them upon people
cheers,
btb
Anyway I have just found out that I don't need vista until mid-2008, when Guild Wars 2 (beta) comes out in full DirectX10 glory :D
Even then you dont need to use Vista for your DirectX 10 needs... roll on the linux distro.. XSOS, which is able to play your windows games including the all new DirectX 10 :D
you can find some info from this forum here...
http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1878061
this is also a FREE os, not warezed :D
oh forgot to add, "4) As per the microsoft agreement we request you to own a valid microsoft operating system."
(this would be a valid XP system)
this might prove to be a wise move, considering that vista has some fundamental bugs...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/vista_copying_bug/
"not even capable of moving and deleting files in an efficient manner,"
so Vista really is n00b safe !!! :D
OMG, it's like a dream come true
If you think this way, in 2009, you will STILL not upgrade because you will be like... "well in 3 years they will be a new one"...
The only reason is because you know that it is coming....
My brother works at hardware chipset manufacture, which I am not going to name...
He is now like you, he can not buy the latest hardware of what his company released, as they (he and his team) are working on the second model in the series after. Meaning that he know that their is a model already done... yet not release...
you may ask why they do that? Well it's totally acceptable as in case their newly release one, fails... they have plan 2. Remember, hardware manufactures don't make much money. Well they do, by engineers are expensive.
how about the difference in the number of computers/users 6 years ago and now?
I'm glad the bittech article acknowledged that fact too. Every other site skates around the issue hoping you won't notice that fact.
I'm a student at small college (< 2000), and I can name you 23 people just like that. And most of them don't even know they have a free Vista upgrade
For the people that say 20 million isn't a lot in 1 month...think again.... it is a lot. Remeber Feb only had 28 days aswell - its not far off 1 every second (~49 every min ...24/7).
I own a few shares in msft and it might be worth noting that although these figures are here...they havn't really done anything to the share price...it seems to be going downward at the moment but yet most analysts think it is overweight/good time to buy.
Ed