“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,” Jessica Mintz reports for The Associated Press.
Mintz reports, “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,” Mintz reports. “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,” Mintz reports. “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.”
Mintz reports, “‘That would say that those (Vista sales) numbers aren’t all that great if that includes all that backlog,’ said Silver.”
“Shipments of Vista to U.S. retailers in February lagged XP’s first-month shipments by about 56 percent, according to the NPD Group,” Mintz reports. “NPD analyst Chris Swenson said he thought Microsoft’s advertising strategy, which he said was light on TV commercials, was partly to blame for the drop in retail sales. Microsoft should have more TV ads selling Vista than Apple has criticizing Vista,’ he said.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “The Wzrd” for the heads up.]
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Microsoft has 90% share alright.
Of course that includes at least 20% of users that bought a copy of XP or Vista on a pirated disc for $4 to $10.
Yes that 20% is counted as Microsoft’s market even though Microsoft got squat in revenue for those millions of pirated copies.
Perspective,
You said””Microsoft Corp. said Monday it sold 20 million consumer copies of the new Windows Vista operating system worldwide in February”
There are approximately 20 million users of Mac OS X in different flavors, according to Apple.
Otherwise, MS sold about as many copies of VISTA in a month as Apple has OS X users.
Not trolling, just showing the scale of what Apple is up against in terms of market share.”
There are about 1 million very well-to-do people in the world.
There are about 900 million middle class people in the world.
There are about 6,000 million people living in abject poverty in the world.
By the same reasoning, being very poor is a good thing.
Me, I think that I like to “Think Different”.
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ne
“Stick your probe into that data port and Google it, you stupid trashcan with feet!”
*series of droid beeps and a 360 head spin*
Does anybody read Daniel Eran’s comments on marketshare over at Roughly Drafted and look at his graphs on comparisons? Or the sources for such information? Having product in the channel being counted as “Sales” is not a good indicator of use by end-users. Ergo – Zune “sales”. Ergo Vista “sales”.
The datapoints are suspect. So are the so-called “reporters” for such mis-information.
How many unes do you see int eh wold? Or how many copies of Vista do you see running on Non-Mac platforms?
Perhaps a good chunk of those 20 million copies of Vista went to the few Mactel boxes out there running Parallels. I understand at least Vista runs on a Mac.
MN: “full” as in “full if it”.
How do we correct our dyslexic finger fowl-ups?
une-> Zune and int he wold -> in the world
MN: try as in try harder.
Wow – so many stock market geniuses here.
LOL.
Let´s all pick the number or measurment that justifies Apple being the greatest stock buy ever…
LOL.
Be glad your parent´s have jobs and can afford to house and feed you.
This 20 million is a completely inflated number. It is clear that MSFT is reporting sell-in numbers and not sell-through numbers to make Vista look more successful than it really is.
The question is how many copies have actually left the shelves at their retailers. Depending on stock balancing periods, those copies may be coming back to MSFT in the next 30, 60 or 90 days.
Then the other question is how many copies that PC manufacturers have actually been installed on machines already sold verus how many of that number are just volume license numbers for machines still to be sold more than 60-90 days from now.
These are not honest numbers of real people really using Vista on a PC right now…..
Vista is over-hyped, and under acheiving. Period. These sales numbers, are in my opinion inflated, or are downright false. As one member mentioned, Micro$oft probably came up with 20 million from the amount they sold to dealers….not the actual amount which the end users use. Typical Microsoft way of twisting reality and making it look as if everything is well and smooth. I sincerely hope that Vista ends up like Zune…a complete failure. Why? Because not only myself, but I don’t like the fact that anyone has to spend $400 for a shitty operating system thats merely a facelift to Windows XP, and very poorly copied version of OS X, and nothing more.
There is a reason why many of us here believe that these sales numbers are not exactly what they appear to be, and it shows in the operating system for one, and secondly, using past history as an example, its obvious why you shouldn’t believe M$ in the first call.
As for the comments on Windows 20 million copies vs Mac’s 20 million user base in 2 months….IT DOESN’T MATTER…Microsoft could have a user base of 10 billion, and the Mac user base could be 10 million….but when you put them side by side, and ask any individual which is of better quality, customer care, better intuitiveness, ease of use, and just downright looks beautiful….the answer will always be a Mac.
Microsoft is on a slide, and you windows fanboys just don’t want to admit and face the reality of the company you have come to love through cynical brainwashings.
I am a Mac user, and I don’t hate Microsoft because its Microsoft…that would be utter stupidity and just plain wrong. I HATE Microsoft because they choose to make mediocre software the standard, that by default is the option that many individuals actually choose to follow globally.
$400 for bullshit operating system?…please give me a break, Ill gladly in a heartbeat send that money for charity causes worldwide to children and communities who could not even afford the basic necessities in life…knowing that I spent my money for a worthy cause.
20 million (customer purchase) in the first 2 months my ass.
A big factor with the “20 million sales” is that consumers aren’t given a choice between Vista or XP, they’re pretty much all Vista pre-installed. The opinion in the enterprise and government seems uniformly to *not* deploy Vista, but to instead re-image new PCs with XP (a significant number of enterprise machines are *still* win2k for that matter, migration to XP is far from complete). A more realistic number of “sales” would be to count only consumer computer sales (which assumes consumers want Vista, many comments are being heard claiming that isn’t so either). At least
when XP was released 2000 was still available (which may have skewed the 17 million figure…)
” A more realistic number of “sales” would be to count only consumer computer sales (which assumes consumers want Vista, many comments are being heard claiming that isn’t so either)”
Well said, thats what I’m saying too.
I bet that if M$ actually only counted specifically the amount of sales that were the result of customer purchase…the number value would be entirely different and also depressing. I would be bold enough to bet that *that* value would have not exceeded 10 million.
2o million in 2 months….what else did they include, the past failed longhorn beta versions as well into this count?
Re: “I HATE Microsoft because they choose to make mediocre software the standard”
I’ll take issue with that. I doubt any of the Vista bashers on this forum have even used Vista. You just bash it and Microsoft because your little internet support group here can’t handle the real world facts. I’ve been using Windows Vista since December at work, and for the last month on my personal PC’s. I love Vista, and frankly, it makes Mac OS X look rather amateurish and dated.
And before you pop a fuse, yes, I am also a Mac user (AlBook G4 @ 1.67 GHz).
Nah, I’m not going to pop a fuse, infact, I’m trying my best not to sound like a mac fanboy. Im a person who, if I honestly see something that is worth giving credit for, ill gladly do it. Now by no means is Apple perfect, they have their own issues as well, but they’ve been steadly improving in the past 5 years or so, while Microsoft has basically went sideways (meaning Longhorn’s developmental stages which eventually got scrapped), and then a new and much rushed product came out as a result.
I’ve also used Windows Vista, since its Beta 2 stage, up until RC1. From Beta 2 to Pre-Rc1, it was (I admit) a big improvement from performance to stability, but in terms of functionality and featurette, its been the same.
You say that Vista makes Mac OS X look amateurish and dated, and, I have to completely disagree with this. In what way does OS X not look professional? Just because Vista has a new face doesnt mean that it has new capibilities as well. Any person will agree when I say that simplicity (yet powerful) is the key to liking, not complexity (yet flawed).
Also I’m guessing you havent used Windows XP before (becuase you never stated you have), so its natural to assume in your case that Vista’s all great. But if you were a user of Windows XP, as I was (as well as many here), then you would clearly understand that Vista is a mere facelift thats all, and adds no functionality that is radically different from the previous versions.
1. Is it the new Aero Glass that makes you like the operating system? Because there are numerous identical themes like that for Windows XP as well.
2. Is it the “Flip 3D that impresses you? Because there is an identical Flip 3D for Windows XP called “TopDesk”, by Otaku Software. This software came from this small company long before Vista was even conceived, which makes me think that Microsoft saw OS X’s Expose, wanted to come up with a way to copy it, then went to google and searched for ideas, went to this website, saw that they had a familar feature, and becuase the company was rather small, thought what the heck, might as well make this our own…and decided to call it “Flip3D”
3. Is it the new icons that impress you? Becuase Windows XP has huge addons online that allow you to customize its icons, and yes, even the cursor to match exactly that of Vista
Again when you compare Vista’s security with that of OS X….Vista loses. As long as windows has dll’s and the registry library…there will always be viruses for that system, that can do major kernel level damage (yes, even in Vista).
I could basically describe Vista, and OS X in word:
OS X = snappy
Vista = bulky
I could go on and on about how everything you could do on Vista, you could also do on Windows XP. Many of the features that Vista had, such as Volume Shadow Copy (which M$ touted as the greatest thing ever) was already present in Windows XP SP2, but it was disabled, however Windows Server 2003 had that feature enabled.
The only thing that I guess you could partly call an upside, is that Vista runs on Dx10…but then again, unless your willing to spend 500+ dollars on a GeForce 8800GTX currently as the only Dx10 card out…then there is no complete positive side to that.
If you want, I could literally breakdown feature by feature for Windows Vista, and explain to you how it was already in Windows XP, and how it is even better in OS X. I know all three of these operating systems (as well as Linux) to a well enough point to be able to have the unbiased knowledge of being able to differentiate which is the best and which is the worst….incase your still wondering:
1. OS X
2. Windows XP
3. Linux
4. Windows Vista
“As long as windows has dll’s and the registry library…there will always be viruses for that system”
DLLs are the exact equivalent of shared libraries on Unix/Linux, and the registry can be secured to whatever degree you choose. it’s no more or less secure than storing the same data somewhere in the file system.
The biggest problem with Windows is not those features, but customers who run as administrator all the time allowing pretty much unrestricted access to the system by any trojans/viruses that they may pick up. Run as root all the time on Linux and it’s equally “insecure”.
Fortunately Vista makes that a thing of the past.
The Vista kernel has a lot more security features then Mac OS X or Linux.
And as for numbers, Vista’ already well on it’s way to exceeding Mac OS X and Linux’s installed base. That’s not a comment on the relative merits of each OS, just a fact that most consumers make the choice of a machine with Vista, not OS X or Linux.