“Bill Gates said Microsoft was ‘amazed’ at the response to Windows Vista, the company’s flagship product,” Benjamin Romano reports for The Seattle Times.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, the response to Windows Vista has been rather amazing. Please see related articles:
Romano continues, “Speaking today to a highly technical audience at Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference here, the Microsoft founder and chairman said his company had high expectations for the product. ‘I mean, we knew that Vista would become the standard version of Windows,’ Gates said. ‘… But what’s happened in the last 100 days has been beyond our expectations. As of last week, we’ve had nearly 40 million copies sold and so that’s twice as fast as the adoption of Windows XP, the last major release that we had.'”
MacDailyNews Take: The last “major” release of Windows was in October 2001. Fewer computers were being sold to sheep in 2001. Hence, as more boxes are being sold today with Vista pre-loaded, more copies of Vista are being “sold.” As if people knew or were “choosing” what they were buying.
Romano continues, “In March, Microsoft said it had sold 20 million copies of Vista in its first month on the market. The company emphasized then that this was double the initial sales pace of XP…”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft and their box assemblers have been selling upgrade guarantees for Windows Vista since October 2006. Please see this related article: Microsoft’s numbers game makes Office 2007, Windows Vista launches look better than reality – April 27, 2007
Romano continues, “Gates went on to take a jab at smaller competitors in the operating-system business — notably Apple… ‘In our first five weeks, we’ve matched the entire installed base of any other provider of similar software,’ Gates said.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mac users have made conscious technology choice and are therefore better informed. – Paul Thurrott.
Mix up some communal reinforcement, a heaping helping of the bandwagon effect, and some nice warm groupthink and what do you get? Microsoft Windows’ unit sales and market share.
He’s joking, right? He must be joking! Either that or both these clowns forgot to take their meds.
I can’t believe that the topic isn’t more often how MS keeps treating Apple like the big sibling. Inferiority complex. Good stuff.
“similar products”… similar cuz you ripped it off you bastard!
I thought the article had a really funny part. Did any one else catch it???
“In an on-stage demonstration, Steven Leonard, senior product manager, showed how a parent could disable access to a child’s music as a punishment for leaving a firewall security feature disabled.”
If my child can figure out how to disable a firewall, do you think that the parent is going to be able to stop them from getting access to their music.?????? Dumb, Mr. Gates, really dumb. !!
And to Sic, with any luck Apple will not sell to box builders. They hack the product to death to save a few cents then do not care about you at all. Period. If you want to buy a cheap Dell, then get a cheap OS too. JMHO.
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MDN word, weeks, as in the weeks ahead will be very interesting. LOL
I’m amazed too. How could M$ take 5 years and $1,000,000,000 and produce a POS like Doze-Vista version? With all the extremely negative press towards Vista, and adding out and out lying by BG to the equation, equals some serious concern in Redmond.
“come on….nobody is BUYING shrinkwraped Vista”
Like who cares whether it’s shrink-wrapped or not when you sell more than the entire Mac user base in a matter of months.
“selling upgrade guarantees for Windows Vista since October 2006. “
Much better, does it really matter if it took Vista 3 or 6 months to eclipse the Mac installed base built up over 20 years?
“As if people knew or were “choosing” what they were buying.”
A completely disingenuous argument. According to MDN, Macs are no more expensive than PCs, and certainly any consumer, through the iPod knows that Apple exists. So there must be a reason they choose Vista over Mac OS X in such overwhelming numbers.
As of last week, we’ve had nearly 40 million copies sold
Bullshit. To who??
Show us hard numbers, namely records of activation. Copies sitting in warehouses (and pre-installs replaced with Windows XP) don’t count.
Until then, consider “40 million” to be straight out of Ballmer’s ass. Ewwww….
WTF? MDN, you guys may have overlooked this and it may require you to ammend your reply!
From the article:
“In an on-stage demonstration, Steven Leonard, senior product manager, showed how a parent could disable access to a child’s music as a punishment for leaving a firewall security feature disabled.”
OMG! Seriously, Microsoft is giving an example…nay…a DEMO…that shows you can punish your child for “for leaving a firewall security feature disabled.” Are they serious? Who on God’s green earth would let their child have the ability to change firewall settings? Maybe the title of the article should read “Microsoft Peddling to Pedophiles!”
“Show us hard numbers, namely records of activation. “
It’s a crime for Bill Gates to lie to investors about sales numbers. So it’s highly unlikely that the 40 million is anything but the number of copies that Microsoft has sold.
Believe it, don’t believe it, but MS just sold more in more of a “failure” OS in months than your beloved Mac OS X installed base. If Vista is a “failure”, OS X is something that aspires one day to be good enough to be even close to being a failure.
“Microsoft Peddling to Pedophiles!”
As if the firewall in OS X or Vista as configured out of the box stops your child getting to YouTube.
And how many millions of this 40 million total are OEM discs sitting in the warehouses of Dell, HP, Sony, etc? C’mon, we know damn well that well over half of that 40 million total aren’t actually in the hands of consumers. We also know that at least 10 million of that total were given as “upgrades” to those who bought XP systems in the 4th quarter of 2006.
If Vista was actually selling so well, why then does the CompUSA that is going out of business down the road from here STILL have copies available even after marking them down 40%??
The “40 million copies of Vista sold” includes all those copies in the hands of box assemblers and retailers as well as small number actually in the hands of end users (losers).
In reality, the majority of all those copies “sold” are still sitting on store shelves or sitting in warehouses waiting to be sold at retail. I can’t see how that can be legitimately counted.
I call shenanigans!
Anyone know what MS charges OEMs for each copy of Vista?
$10-$20? And at their current pace, how long to recoup 5+ years of development?
I’d love to know how many of those copies are on the black market. I Think gates must read these blogs as I think I remember some one a couple days ago having a dig at him. I think he felt he had to respond :<
“C’mon, we know damn well that well over half of that 40 million total aren’t actually in the hands of consumers. “
You mean you hope, you wish and you dream that that were the case.
And even if they are in warehouses and stores now 1) That’s still a sale for Microsoft. Apple also counts iPods and Macs it ships to retailers and distributors as a sale when it ships them. 2) worst case a month or two, most will be in consumer hands, so I don’t see how you can possibly spin this announcement to be good news. But, keep deluding yourself and trying.
“$10-$20? And at their current pace, how long to recoup 5+ years of development?”
Your price is a bit low for the average cost per copy, and the answer is, about a year, maybe two at the outside depending on uptake rates.
It’s a crime for Bill Gates to lie to investors about sales numbers.
MS? Criminal?? Like any silly laws ever stopped them.
Believe it, don’t believe it, but MS just sold more in more of a “failure” OS in months than your beloved Mac OS X installed base.
Again, prove it. I want an audited tally of who’s buying Vista, and the percentage of the “sold” copies that have been activated and are actually in use.
Let’s try this: if an automaker sells new cars to junkyards, does that count as “sales”? Should they be able to claim those sales as part of their market share?
Gates and Ballmer can only see the numbers leaving MS’s dock. It’s where those copies finally end up that counts. Heh I wonder if anyone would notice if MS left most of the Vista install boxes empty.
If MSoft is doing so well with Vista, why did Billy Boy just dump 3 million shares of stock?
Obcause they are flocking to buy Vista. Vista is safer OS! No more third party anti-virus software to install. Windows users are desperate for more secure OS. Upgrade cannot be any worse than the reinstall me once a week XP, could it?
“Let’s try this: if an automaker sells new cars to junkyards, does that count as “sales”? Should they be able to claim those sales as part of their market share?”
Yes. But how long can you pretend that enough Vista sales fall into that category to make a difference?
“Again, prove it. I want an audited tally of who’s buying Vista”
Sure, I’ll get right on it for you. While I’m at it, give me your address so I can send a million bucks over and a half dozen beautiful women (or guys if you prefer) to service you. You can keep the keys to the limo I send them over in. OK, I guess you know now none of those things are going to happen.
So stop being silly about what you require before you believe the obvious, that Vista is absolutely thrashing Mac OS X in the marketplace. Given Microsoft’s dominance of the OS market that’s hardly a result that’s surprising anyone.
.
“But because Apple won’t license OSX to Dell or whomever, Microsoft will always be the superior performing OS.”
So… Selling more copies makes the OS better performing?
You’re joking right? Surely not even a Windows drone could be that stupid.
It’s funny how the trolls come out on this board when Gates spews FUD. It should be obvious when the 30 people worldwide that showed up for the Vista release party and purchased a copy of Vista, that the other 39,999,970 copies were sold to Best Buy et al and are still sitting on shelves.
“It’s a crime for Bill Gates to lie to investors about sales numbers. So it’s highly unlikely that the 40 million is anything but the number of copies that Microsoft has sold.”
You are kidding, right?
M$ has been lying, cheating, and stealing in front of all of us and not even Justice Dept could do anything to stop them.
A lot of things have been proven and what happened? Nothing!
M$ is virtually untouchable and they can get away with much bigger things then lying about some numbers. In the worst case scenario they will find some sacraficial sheep, some VP who will get kick back for taking the heat.
The MS astroturfers reek of desperation. It’s a pit stain smell.
At first glance it seems like a lot but when Ilook around me, I cannot find one single sollitary person who has Vista. I know manywith Windows 2000 or XP but that is it.
Another thing I do not understand. Why does Gates feel the need to boast about higher numbers than Apple? If you have a monopoly, why in hell are you boasting? Fear? Immaturity? Low testosterone?