“The sales number, for the operating system’s first 100 days of broad availability, represents license sales into the channel. However, the number of Vista PCs sold is probably much less,” Joe Wilcox reports for Microsoft Watch.
“The 40 million number has a much more credible ring than Microsoft’s April proclamation of 20 million licenses sold in 30 days. The 20 million figure included coupons Microsoft offered for Vista PCs sold during the holidays,” Wilcox reports.
“The second 20 million is the first real indication of how well Windows Vista is selling. Because of the coupon program, the time period associated with the first 20 million license sales was longer than 30 days; more like four months. In addition, Microsoft offered two separate licenses—for Windows XP and Vista—for each PC sold during the coupon period,” Wilcox reports.
Wilcox reports, “Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD, said that the 40 million figure ‘certainly seems plausible.’ Doing some quick shipment calculations, based on one-third of year sales, he figured Vista sales to be in the ’35 to 37 million range with 3 to 5 million in the channel.'”
“”Sold’ does not equal ‘deployed,” said Al Gillen, IDC’s research vice president of system software. ‘If you went out and tried to find the portion of that 40 million that went into businesses, you will find a lot of the machines have been downgraded to Windows XP, which is perfectly legit,'” Wilcox reports.
“The sales figure is through last week, which means about 20 million Vista licenses sold in about two months—from March 1 to early May,” Wilcox reports.
Wilcox reports, “Analyst projections for the current quarter are encouraging, but the real crunch will come in June. If OEMs and retailers start heavy discounting or quarterly PC shipments come up short, there will be a sign of much unsold Vista inventory.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, mix up some communal reinforcement, a heaping helping of the bandwagon effect, and some nice warm groupthink and what do you get? Microsoft Windows’ market share.