Microsoft Vista sells 20M copies in Feb.

[oldandinthe way]

REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft Corp. said Monday it sold 20 million consumer copies of the new Windows Vista operating system worldwide in February, but analysts said the data shed little light on the program's popularity during its first month on the market.

By comparison, Windows XP, Vista's predecessor, sold 17 million copies in the two months following its 2001 launch, Microsoft said.

"It's a stronger than expected start," Bill Mannion, a director of product marketing for Windows, said in an interview.

But given that the personal computer market has nearly doubled since XP launched, Vista sales "probably should be more," said Michael Silver, vice president of research at Gartner, a technology research group.

The analyst said 51 million PCs were sold to consumers worldwide in 2002; this year, the research group predicts 96 million consumers will buy a computer.

Starting in late October, PC makers included coupons for free or low-cost Vista upgrades that could be used once the software became available at the end of January. Microsoft's February sales total includes those promised upgrades, in addition to licenses ordered by PC makers to install on new computers, shrink-wrapped copies sold in retail stores and downloads from the Windows Marketplace Web store.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070327/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_vista_sales_2

[JohnnyMalaria]

I'd be happy if our software sold that much

[handyguy]

They aren't selling XP anymore. So there isn't much choice of what to buy.

[oldandinthe way]

Today's Wall Street Journal says that these "disappointing" sales may be signs of a potential windfall later for Microsoft.

Try this out!

Makers of hardware components overbuilt - expecting higher sales of new systems at the Vista release. Therefore they have too much inventory, are cutting prices, and the surge in demand for lower-priced PCs will create a deluge of Vista sales.

As for handyguy's comment on XP, Dell just introduced XP based low cost systems for sale in China. If there was market demand elsewhere for XP, someone would sell it.

Most analysts, even those critical of Vista, seem to feel that Vista when factory installed on a new machine is quite acceptable and there is no need to replace it with XP. Given the upgrades Lenovo has made on software for my notebook to run Vista I'd feel comfortable running it on a new machine. I just have no intentiuon of upgrading any of my existing machines.

[dnix71]

The reported sales probably include corporate licenses, too. The company I work for resells software so we just bought 50 Dells to keep 'current'.

We still use white box SystemMax's that won't even run XP SP2. Win98SE is fine for most things, and XP for the rest.

I don't hate M$, but I don't exactly wish them well, either. The world doesn't need another bloated crippleware operating system.

[qz3fwd]

I really like the new Media Center since I can now tune clear/record QAM HDTV channels using any of my 4 tuners!

Otherwise, XP does everything I need and has been very stable for the last couple of years, and so was Windows 2000. But Vista is very evidently bloated from the time you hit enter after typing your password in.

[AlecWest]

The Microsoft report is a teensy bit flawed. I read an article similar to the one mentioned above ... but it indicated that the Vista "sales" they're counting are based primarily on "installations" (some, computers still sitting on store shelves) and not on sales of the software in a "box."

They aren't selling XP anymore. So there isn't much choice of what to buy.

Au contraire. Microsoft is still selling XP. Look at the right column under the heading, "Looking to upgrade" on this page:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/default.mspx

The very first option they give is to order directly from Microsoft. Note, this is just for Home Edition XP ... but I'm certain there's a similar page for Pro Edition XP.

[handyguy]

Interesting cause other websites said they werent going to market it anymore.

"The reported sales probably include corporate licenses, too."

True. Probably 10M of those are for Dell.