“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.
40 Million copies sold (uh huh) and I can’t find one person that likes it.
I think the word is flabergasted.
Unfortunatley MS is like the oil companies. We’re stuck with them until the oil runs out or the world fries form the heat.
I am amazed at what a lier gates is!
according to a interview with an actual microsoft Executive who presented numbers Joe Wilcox came to this conclusion:
The number’s meaning collapses for three simple reasons:
* Microsoft’s sales period for the license sales is significantly longer than 30 days—more like four months.
* License sales into the channel do not correspond to actual Vista PC sales out of the channel.
* The numbers don’t match up with real world PC sales volumes.
By my accounting, Vista is actually off to a slower start than Windows XP, using real world comparisons.
I agree! with Dell sales dropping and then dropping Vista I cant see how they are selling any at all.
Superior performing OS???!!!
I think he meant sales performance.
So there must be a reason they choose Vista over Mac OS X in such overwhelming numbers.
While awareness of Apple is higher than it was, there are still a lot of people who don’t even know what an OS is. They just buy the cheapest computer at their closest big box store, and that’s usually a Windows PC.
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 couldn’t sell it to a massive installed base, hence it’s a failure. Apple, meanwhile, is growing from its niche at three times the industry rate. Hence, not a failure.
Wow, the astroturfers are out in force!
As for 40 million Vista copies sold, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that MS has stuffed the channel, just like they did with Xbox 360 over Xmas. As far as others like Apple doing likewise, if you pay attention to the conference calls, you’ll see that unlike MS stuffing the channel and carrying lots of inventory in order to meet some internal sales targets, Apple has kept steady inventory levels of iPods.
If people can’t see that MS has played fast and loose with the numbers, I pity them. It’s not rocket science. Just compare how many PCs actually shipped when MS said they sold 20 million licenses in one month. Impossible.
Amazon Best Sellers – Software
The most popular items on Amazon.com. Updated hourly.
4. Parallels Desktop for OS X
20. Windows XP Home
37. Windows XP Pro
53. Mac OS X 10.4
82. Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade (238.99)
84. Windows Vista Ultimate Full Install (358.99)
Yeah Vista is flying off the shelves. XP is outselling it at Amazon.
If Microsoft is so sure of it’s products, why did they post a seist and desist order to all employee’s at CompUSA, stating that they can not say anything bad about Microsoft’s Vista operating system to customers or they will be fired. I previously worked for CompUSA and still have friends there. Everyone from sales people on the floor and technicians are bashing Vista.
I know two people who have upgraded (I use that term loosely).
No one in our corporate office.
No one in my girlfriends business office.
No one outside the offices.
No friends (save the two mentioned).
No relatives.
No extended business acquaintances at work or home.
Two out of about 350.
Wow.
Wow more people to find Vista Annoying and wanting to switch to Macs. Thanks Microsoft for keeping your model of making horrible products.
We all know why the company is called Micro-soft… It has to Bill and Melinda on their wedding night on Lanai’… Melinda walked out of the bath all ready for the night of nights and onserving the groom said, “Geez, now I know why you names it Micro-soft”…
The rest is his-story…
EVERYONE and I mean everyone that I have talked to regarding V.I.S.T.A. is displeased with something… and threaten to switch. Disillusionment is the first step to overcoming an addiction.
Yo! V.I.S.T.A. users: Get out of your dope-head and head to an Apple Store or head to an online store near you and get your head around the best thing since sliced bread: Apple, Inc’s computers and operating system! Why? It just works!
MDN: head
Unfortunatley MS is like the oil companies. We’re stuck with them until the oil runs out or the world fries form the heat.
—
Great attitude. Do me a favor. Phone every person you know and apologize for the shitty influence you’ve had on them during the course of your life.
BILL GATES HAS ONLY ONE TESTICLE!!
Why flatter him?
Credit where it’s due. Bill is still one of the richest people in the world so he must be doing something right (don’t know what that is though). I’ll bet he has a secret basement full of Macs.
Vista
Wow, 40 million copies in 100 days.
Yeah. That’s really sad. What’s out there? 20 million upgrade certificates which MS will never demonstrate translated into actual installs, and what, 10? 15 million PCs sold with Vista preinstalled? Most of which are from box makers pushing out units to sit under desks of people who had no choice ib what system they end up using.
Best case? 5 to maybe 8 million people actually chose to buy Vista. The rest either have a certificate they will probably never use, or got Vista forced on them.
“…In our first five weeks, we’ve matched the entire installed base of any other provider of similar software,’ Gates said.”
“Similar” software?
If Gates is referring to OS X, he’s delusional. OS X doesn’t run on PCs and isn’t provided for them anyway, so there is clearly no similarity there.
I just LOVE Mr. Bill Gates!
Only when he is representing the Melinda Gates Foundation. Through it his familyu have done a lot of good for alot of people round the World. Education In American Schools, Anti Aids medical research, malaria etc.
If he stood down from M$ properly, his star as an individual would rise higher than Mr S J.
That is not to say Mr S J is not a demi-god! HE IS (please not lower case g) So go on Applelytes & worship at his alter.. were is the ambrosia!!!!?
Very few customers actually chose to buy Vista. It came pre-installed by default when they chose to buy a new PC. Microsoft will obviously have some short-term “momentum” from this ingrained behavior on the part of typical consumers. But Microsoft did more to sabotage this behavior (long-term) by releasing the fundamentally flawed Vista than Apple could have done in ten years. Vista may be the best thing to happen to Apple since the return of Steve Jobs.
Im sure if people had to choose which OS they want installed when they buy a new computer that most of them would not choose Vista.
So here’s the REAL SALES FIGURES; 5 million copies of Vista sold since retail release.
I have said it before and will say it again, everyone I know won’t touch Vista with a barge pole until at least one major upgrade on it is released.
Friends of mine tell me horror stories of what they have had to do to get Vista to work on therr brand new pcs.
They all say the same thing too… that they wish they had used Mac OS X!
re: sanatclause
“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.
——–
Selling more copies of Vista than OS X DOES NOT MAKE VISTA THE BETTER OS.
Lets face it, the ONLY reason why Vista has sold more copies (alledgidly!) is because it is pre-installed on all the cheap and crappy pc’s that your average windows using clone will throw out every 6 months.
What you have to realise is that in this modern age masses of sales of an OS mean fuck all.
What IS important is CHOICE.
The real sadt thing is that consumers DONT HAVE CHOICE WHICH OS IS PRE-INSTALLED ON THEIR NEW PC.
IF THEY DID, MICROSOFT WOULD WOULD GONE OUT OF BUSINESS 10 YEARS AGO.
Yeah well apparently Spiderman 3 was the biggest earning movie of all time.
It was still crap.
If you had to buy a new pc and the sales assistant said ” ok – which OS you want pre-installed?. We can install Vista, Mac OS X or Linux on th pc here in th shop”
“You choose…”
Guess which OS would never be chosen… Vista.
Says it all really.
Yo Richard,
I actually liked Spiderman. Try using a car comparison instead
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I bumped into one of my ex-students at the mall and he told me he just got a Sony Vaio…and he was really underwhelmed with Vista. So I immediately went into my “why didn’t you get a mac” routine.
He told me that his brother got a job with IBM and they gave him the notebook for free. He asked mangement whether they’d mind if he used his Macbook Pro instead of the windows’ machine and they agreed. So my ex-student got the Sony thing for free because the IBM employee preferred his mac to a free windows’ machine.
Hey Walter. That’s a classic
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Did you tell him if he should sells his Vaio he may have enough dosh to buy a MacBook
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I hope he hasn’t thrown it at the wall yet or he will get nothing for it.