Windows Vista License Sales Top 180 Million
We were scratching our heads during Corporate Vice President Brad Brooks'
speech
at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this month. For all Brooks'
talk about Microsoft drawing a "line in the sand" for critics of Vista
to cross, there were no fruits of the new $300 million ad campaign on display
and no hard data about Vista adoption.
Microsoft addressed part of that with a hard figure on Vista during its quarterly
earnings call last week. The news: Sales of Vista licenses have exceeded
180 million licenses.
On its face, that's a really good number. For a quick recap, Microsoft announced
20 million units sold in the first month (March 26, 2007), 40 million units
sold in the first 100 days (May 15, 2007), more than 60 million licenses sold
"as of the summer" of 2007 (Sept. 27, 2007) and 100 million licenses
sold in its first year (Jan. 30, 2008). So we're talking 80 million units in
the first half of calendar 2008, compared with roughly 50 million in the first
half of 2007.
Take away downgrade rights, and I'm not so sure the number is meaningful other
than as a measure of Windows' market power in general. But there it is, duly
reported.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 22, 2008 at 11:58 AM