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40M Vista Licenses in 100 Days

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the allright-who-did-it dept.

Gary writes "In the first 100 days since its launch in Jan 30 Windows Vista has sold an astounding 40 million licenses. Bill Gates gives the credit to accelerating consumer shift to digital lifestyles which has made it the fastest selling operating system in history. Surprisingly the more expensive premium editions accounted for 78 percent of Vista sales. With around 400,000 licenses a day new Vista users will take 8 weeks to beat Mac users, 4 days to exceed Mac sales and 3 days to exceed Linux desktop users."

30 of 579 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm.. by Mockylock · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news... China sells 40 million of it's OWN copies.

    --
    "Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
    1. Re:Hmm.. by dna_(c)(tm)(r) · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ye's

    2. Re:Hmm.. by dna_(c)(tm)(r) · · Score: 5, Funny
      Can't RTFA (since appear to be /.'d), but I just wonder, how many of these licenses were sold to Dell, Toshiba, HP, etc... And since there are no more XP, well...

      Apparently, they sell even more licenses than Debian, Gentoo and Ubuntu together. Wohoo! Amazing.

      Maybe it's just the longest overdue OS release ever. "...4 days to exceed Mac sales and 3 days to exceed Linux desktop users", more like 6 years and 4 or 3 days.

    3. Re:Hmm.. by Mockylock · · Score: 1, Funny

      FUCK.

      --
      "Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
    4. Re:Hmm.. by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't even use a spelling or grammar checker anymore. If I have any doubt, just post it on /. and wait for 100 anal-retentive, pedantic grammar-nazis to nit-pick it to death. It's great to have a community of Asperberger's victims at my disposal.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    5. Re:Hmm.. by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yea, its one of my pet peeves as well. Do you notice how prevalent its' gotten?

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    6. Re:Hmm.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Grammer police? Kelsey Grammer has hi's own police force???

    7. Re:Hmm.. by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Funny

      In other news... China sells 40 million of it's OWN copies.

      Correction:

      In other news... China sells 40 million of it's OWN copy.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    8. Re:Hmm.. by OnlineAlias · · Score: 2, Funny


      He's doing it wrong because he's coming back.

    9. Re:Hmm.. by khraz · · Score: 5, Funny

      Asperberger's It's spelled Asperger's! Learn to spell! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHH

    10. Re:Hmm.. by Bjarke+Roune · · Score: 3, Funny

      > I don't even use a spelling or grammar checker anymore. If I have any
      > doubt, just post it on /. and wait for 100 anal-retentive, pedantic
      > grammar-nazis to nit-pick it to death. It's great to have a community
      > of Asperberger's victims at my disposal.
      >
      That would be "If I have any doubt, *I* just post it on /. and wait for
      100 anal-retentive, pedantic grammar-nazis to nit-pick it to death." Unless
      you really mean to offer other people the advice of posting things to /.
      in case *you* have any doubt, which would be a bit strange.

      /Your local anal-retentive, pedantic grammar-nazi

      --
      Bjarke Roune
    11. Re:Hmm.. by jhylkema · · Score: 4, Funny

      Asperberger's It's spelled Asperger's! Learn to spell! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHH

      It's pronounced "ass burger," isn't it?

    12. Re:Hmm.. by crunch_ca · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's easy as anything to play the numbers game, depending on what premises you accept.
      By my count, there are just over 6 billion people who have licensed the right to use Linux.

      Counting actual installations gives a different number though.

    13. Re:Hmm.. by indifferent+children · · Score: 3, Funny
      I was never quite sure if "anal-retentive" was hyphenated or not.

      Instead of a hyphen, wouldn't a colon be more appropriate?

      --
      Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
  2. Roman Numerals? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    40M Vista Licenses in 100 Days
    Hmmm, my Roman Numerals are a bit rusty but 40 * 1000 = 40,000 licenses!

    That's way more than I'd ever expect! Congratulations, Gates! You must be proud that your employees each own a copy!
    1. Re:Roman Numerals? by eln · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, that would mean only about 56% of his employees own a copy of Vista (they had 71,172 employees as of June 30, 2006). Poor Microsoft: First, Steve Ballmer can't even GIVE a Zune to his 80 year old uncle, and now they can't even get all of their employees to pony up for Vista.

    2. Re:Roman Numerals? by Diss+Champ · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's worse than that. With Roman Numerals you don't multiply, you subtract smaller numbers before the bigger. Assuming the 40 itself is still modern notation,

      40M = 1000 - 40 = 960 licenses.

  3. Greetings by Rovastar · · Score: 2, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new OS overlords. ... ... Oh its Microsoft.

  4. So what this clearly implies... by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    There are 170212.766 Vista users for each Microsoft patent being violated by free software.

  5. Re:Waiting for it... by danbert8 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'll be entertained to see how some Slashdotters twist this into being "bad for Microsoft" or something. Be entertained and enjoy these options:
    (1) I think MS was counting copies of XP in this count. People just ASSUMED OSs sold equalled Vista.
    (2) Microsoft was actually hacked to change the number.
    (3) This was actually the sales dollars, not the number of licenses sold!
    (4) That's horse crap, my grandmother could sell a billion copies of Vista with her eyes closed, and she runs LINUX!!! OMG I PWNED YOU!!11!
    --
    Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
  6. "beat Mac users" ??? by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 4, Funny
    Possible replies are gushing forth...
    • Beat them at what? Solitaire?
    • Beat them with what? A stick!?
    • ... beat Mac users at number of hosted spambots in 8 seconds.
    --
    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
    1. Re:"beat Mac users" ??? by DJNephilim · · Score: 5, Funny

      You are about to place a queen of spades on top of a king of hearts. Cancel or Allow?

      --
      Enemy of the Sun
  7. In other other news... by abscondment · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... 95% of the world's lemmings have jumped off a cliff.

  8. Re:I'm confused... by mlk · · Score: 3, Funny

    Microsoft is a failure -except- for XP, which is semi-acceptable. I though the Only Good Microsoft OS(tm) was Windows 2000?
    --
    Wow, I should not post when knackered.
  9. Re:I'm confused... by cyberchondriac · · Score: 4, Funny

    There is no Vista ? ;-)

    (I stopped believing in spoons long ago)

    --

    Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  10. Sadly, Microsoft forgot to mention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Steve Balmer bought 39,999,000 of those licenses and gave them away to

    Developers
    Developers
    Developers
    Developers.

  11. MS Marketing spin at it again by thestudio_bob · · Score: 4, Funny

    Vista has sold an astounding 40 million licenses...

    Accept or Deny?

    --
    The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains /.
  12. Re:Where did they get these numbers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Easy as 1-2-3:

    1. Announce that Linux uses 200+ of your patents. (Makes no difference if it's true or not.)

    2. Then count all Linux users as Vista users! (Makes no difference if it's valid or not.)

    3. Send PR blurb to press you advertise heavily in.

    Couldn't be easier.

  13. Here, take this: by Control+Group · · Score: 4, Funny

    [

    ]

    It's some whitespace you can use in your next post. No, don't thank me, I've got plenty.

    --

    Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
  14. Re:Typical Microsoft stretch marketing by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2, Funny
    You realize you're citing an editorial piece, not an actual article, right? And that's an editorial piece from an IT magazine that is about as anti-Microsoft as Slashdot.

    You realize that if the numbers cited in the editorial piece are incorrect, that you can provide the correct ones?