40M Vista Licenses in 100 Days

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."

Comments

Hmm..

[Mockylock]

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

Re:Hmm..

[Idbar]

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...

Re:Hmm..

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Ye's

Re:Hmm..

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

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.

Re:Hmm..

[elrous0]

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.

Re:Hmm..

[ArsonSmith]

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

Re:Hmm..

[Pharmboy]

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.

Re:Hmm..

[laffer1]

How many are being used? Isn't that the real question. How many of those people got the new PC and put XP on it? How many loaded linux or BSD? Not every computer shipped with Windows runs that version of Windows. IT people might have bought a site license to run Vista Business but bought Vista home, etc. Everybody get out your jump to conclusions board.

Selling != using

So the claim that Vista users will out pace Mac or Linux users so quickly is not true. Its not even possible to get an accurate number on that. I didn't RTFA, but I also wonder what Mac OS sales figures they are using. Are they just comparing 10.4 sales to vista? Are they comparing Mac hardware sales? I upgraded my laptop to 10.4. Is that in there? Not all my Macs even run Mac OS. I have one running OpenBSD exclusively.

How are they comparing Linux users? Is it redhat and suse sales? If so, that's a very small percentage of total linux users.

Re:Hmm..

[OnlineAlias]

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

Re:Hmm..

[khraz]

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

Re:Hmm..

[Bjarke Roune]

> 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

Re:Hmm..

[M-G]

I really doubt it's 40M retail licenses. So yeah, I'd give the credit to cutting off OEM licenses of XP. Even though build-to-order OEMs like Dell can still install XP for now, every retail computer has Vista.

Yup. You just have to look at the numbers. "HP's worldwide PC market share grew to 17.6 percent in the first quarter of 2007 with sales of just over 11 million units, according a preliminary report from Gartner Inc." (source). Do the math. The same article says that Gartner and IDC define 'PC' in a slightly different way, so their numbers are different, but they report worldwide sales of 67 million and 58.9 million, respectively. That's in a single quarter. If that sales pace has continued, that can easily account for a huge chunk of Vista sales.

Re:Hmm..

[Sorthum]

I also work for a college, albeit on the Unix side.

Last I recall, we had Software Assurance or whatever they're calling their upgrade program. Long story short, we can install Vista on all 6000 of our machines. We don't actually run it on more than 100 right now, but we technically are licensed to do it, by virtue of our site license that we pay MS for every year.

I'm quite sure that they look at our licensing tier, say "They can go up to 10K machines on this license, so we'll mark them down as 10K Vista licenses sold."

It's easy as anything to play the numbers game, depending on what premises you accept.

Re:Hmm..

[jhylkema]

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

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

Re:Hmm..

[ScytheBlade1]

Where to start..

Firstly, your analogy sucks. You can't really compare murder to product activation. You... just can't. They are two, very different things. "Taking the law into your own hands" when someone you know was murdered is not even related to invasion of privacy. I can't even see how that would be remotely related.

Second, let's talk about the three things which are clearly irking you: product activation, Windows Genuine Advantage, and the numerous programs (say, Windows Media Player for example) that are locked with WGA.

Product activation... sends your product key in a secure fashion over the internet (or phone) and allows Microsoft to verify that you are actually using a legit copy of Windows. The only way I can see this as invasion of privacy and not being legal is in the sense that you feel any required contact with Microsoft shouldn't happen, when in reality, you clicked the "I Agree" button to the license, which in fact states that Microsoft can do anything they want to your computer running Windows, at any time they want. You may disagree with that, and many do, but you did push the "I Agree" button in the end.

WGA is another beast, which again, many people dislike. Fortunately, when you run windows update, you're given the option of installing it. Yup. Uncheck that little checkbox, and hey, it won't be installed. Good stuff. It even gives you an option to ignore that update in the future. Even if you do install this, it should be noted that it doesn't report back to Microsoft. So, again, no invasion of privacy. If you consider it to be one, don't install it.

Now, if you have many .wmas, all of which are DRM'd and playable only through Windows Media Player... it also doesn't matter. WMP11 won't install unless you pass it's built in WGA check, leaving you with... either a functional WMP11, or a functional WMP10.


Even if you install WGA and it flags your license as "Not Genuine" - all that it will do is annoy you. No fuctionality will be disabled - your computer will continue to function. It will not "get their computer shut down" and nor is it "spying on [you] by other vendors."

I'm really curious where you get this "invasion of privacy" bit, when A) you accepted the license in the first place, and B) the real problems you have with it, are not only easily circumvented, but Microsoft gives you the tools to "circumvent" it out of box.

Re:Hmm..

[the_womble]

The Linux fanbase has no qualms claiming downloading=using

Really? The only Linux number I have seen recently were for Ubuntu, and that was based on the number of people downloading updates through the automated system.

those who use Linux a large number have it installed on secondary partitions as they want to keep their primary windows platform while playing around with Linux to get geek cred

No. The dual booters I have met use Linux as their primary OS and use Windows for games.

it never was, never was meant to be and never will be a mass market operating system used by the naive users

I know several naive users who prefer it to Windows.

Re:Hmm..

[mrsteveman1]

I think you partially missed the point, Vista is a total blackbox, to a much further degree than XP was or ever could be.

What we care about are things that Microsoft developed and intended to utilize in Vista to enforce software and media licensing, some of which which could easily be retasked to be more invasive and spy on the user, either intentionally or by accident through malicious software taking over. Some are not present, but some are, the rest can be added later after people are no longer complaining. Microsoft has shown it fully intends to utilize things like these in the future, so none of this is conspiracy theory.

Of most concern is the "Nexus", the secure kernel space capable of protecting specific parts of the system, preventing the user (and as a side effect, malware) from accessing or altering secure applications. This was primarily intended to stop users from circumventing software locks or DRM for media or software while the system was online, this was the first half of the system that is not currently present as far as we know.

The second half of the system that IS present is Secure Startup. The name was changed to Bitlocker at launch to market it as a user protection scheme. However Secure Startup was developed to be the offline half of the system intended to protect vulnerable software locks or DRM systems. By encrypting the main volume, users are prevented from circumventing DRM systems while the system is offline. The SS system also measures the bootloader to ensure it is not starting in a way that would break the chain of security. The encryption benefit to users is a side effect.

Some of the "Trusted" features of Vista are not in the system yet, some are, but the rest of the "Trusted" system will likely be installed with a service pack or update, at which time people will have already upgraded to Vista, and you can either choose to upgrade the components required, like the TPM or Processor, or simply not use the applications that will require them.

Re:Hmm..

[crunch_ca]

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.

Re:Hmm..

[default luser]

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me at all. The Software Assurance is issued in 3-year intervals, and since it was introduced in 2001, many companies have re-signed Software Assurance plans in 2004 and recently in 2006/2007. In fact, this was one of the driving factors behind The November '06 release of Vista: Microsoft quelled unrest in their biggest customers by releasing Vista before their Software Assurance plans ran out.

The fact is, very few companies are going to drop their Software Assurance contracts, and since every single SA contact comes with a Vista Enterpeise license (it is the only way to get one, according to Microsoft), I wouldn't be surprised at all if Microsoft counted every re-signed SA contract in their numbers.

I've been wondering this whole time where MS was getting their numbers, but now it all makes sense. What also makes sense is how Microsoft posted huge profits for this quarter: lots of re-signed SA contracts, plus SOME genuine sales of Vista (with new accounting practices, the entire profit from the sale is applied to only this quarter, instead of the software lifetime).

Re:Hmm..

[fyngyrz]

Product activation... sends your product key in a secure fashion over the internet (or phone) and allows Microsoft to verify that you are actually using a legit copy of Windows. The only way I can see this as invasion of privacy and not being legal

Well, here's the thing that bothers me about it.

Let's say that some years down the road, I radically reconfigure my system, or it crashes, or I replace the machine with something else completely, and I have to reinstall. I have to go to MS, again, and re-activate.

But suppose MS refuses... perhaps some kid has my product key out on the net, or I'm on some irrevocable government list that makes it a crime to sell to me, or maybe I have the same name as a known pirate, or because Vista's support window has closed, as Win95's and Win98's has.

Or... suppose MS can't because there are patent issues, or their activation servers crashed, or because a meteor wiped them off the face of the earth, or because the west coast suddenly fell into the sea, or because terrorists nuked them, or the northwest becomes an active volcano zone... or perhaps other things I could probably think of if I was feeling a little more creative.

Now let's imagine this same problem across all the desktops in the six businesses I own. That's a couple hundred machines. That's my livelihood, and the livelihood of all my employees. Now you have my full attention.

Activation is DRM that depends upon the good will, continuing existence, legal ability, and support policies of the company doing the activating.

The consequences of the OS not working include not being able to work with data once the grace period expires, in the cases where there is such a thing (30 days with Vista.) It can be moved, but if Vista has proven to be intractable, it would not make sense to continue trying to use Vista. If the data is moved to linux or OSX, the data may be lost anyway anyway, unless there are compatible programs that can translate it, or ports of those apps that can read it as if it was native.

So clearly, the smart thing is to go with an OS that doesn't give any crap about reinstalling it. That means, at least today, either OSX or linux. Now the only thing stopping machines from keeping on keeping on, as it were, are backup habits. Mine, and those controlled by me, have been honed to a pretty fine sensibility by 37 years of being involved with computers.

As far as I am concerned, MS went a step too far with product activation. My opinion only controls an incredibly miniscule portion of the market, and so I'm quite sure MS doesn't give a hoot on any level whatsoever, but that's no longer my problem, as I'm no longer tied to their OS either personally or with regard to my business operations.

Re:Hmm..

[Opportunist]

True. A download is not automatically a use. But so far, I have not seen Linux being force-fed to anyone when they bought a new computer. Also, you only have to download it once to use it how many times you wish to use it.

Yes, not everyone who downloads it will use it for longer than a test period. Many people download it, try it, find out it's not their kind of system (or just not their kind of distri) and move on. There are, though, just as many people who download it once and use it multiple times.

So I'd guess it's safe to say that one download = one use. A bunch of people will download and not use it, some others will download once and use it multiple times. Since it's kinda impossible to determine how many of each breed exist, I'd assume that they hold a balance, at least 'til some more reasonable way to determine it can be found. Linux distris don't phone home, and I certainly wouldn't want them to just for bragging rights.

MS on the other hand should have a fairly good idea just how many of the licenses sold are actually in use. Every single one sold and used HAS to phone home and be activated. Funny enough, we get numbers of licenses sold, but not of licenses activated.

Wonder why...

Re:Hmm..

[PostPhil]

I think it's pretty safe to say that Linux users understand the Windows demographic because of its ubiquity (we all use it sometime), but the reverse is not true (most never tried Linux, others didn't stick with it long enough). You have demonstrated this lack of understanding right now.

I am posting this comment FROM LINUX (or rather, from Firefox on Linux). It is my MAIN OS, and it's been that way since 1999. I dual boot into Windows 98 for some old games I have, which should tell you how often I use Windows for my own use. Back in '99, a couple of my friends had already started to switch to Linux which influenced me as well (plus I was trying to run the old 3D program Moonlight Creator/Atelier which ran on Linux). Notice how Linux users often are born out of exposure to other Linux users? Linux users aren't rare nor are they isolated exceptions to the rule, only Linux commercial sales figures make it seem that way.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who hardly know anything other than Windows just can't understand why other OS's are compelling. Computers aside, there is a demographic of people that are do-it-yourselfers. They like learning. They like control over the products they use. They like their freedom. They like feeling they can trust those who make the product and that the product itself isn't purposedly designed to monitor them or get in their way of work and play. They aren't timid towards technology. These type of people are not rare, and it's not like you haven't met someone like this. These are the types of people that run Linux, open source BSD Unices, etc.

If you take offense that people are cynical towards Windows sales figures, I agree that people need to care more about truth than knee-jerk reaction. Unfortunately, most retorts motivated by the need for retribution miss their mark frankly because most Windows people really don't understand anything about the libre/open-source software community and the software they use.

Re:Hmm..

[indifferent children]

I was never quite sure if "anal-retentive" was hyphenated or not.

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

hmm

[pak9rabid]

Ah, looks like another game of 'defer the revenues from a more successful quarter to a less successful quarter'. Didn't yall get in trouble w/the SEC for doing that?

Where did they get these numbers?

[danbert8]

I'm betting they included "free upgrade to vista" offers for copies of XP sold for the year prior to vista. But how many of these people have actually claimed their free upgrade copy?

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[EvilGrin666]

I know a couple that have. However most of them have subsequently given up on Vista and reinstalled XP.

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[Red Flayer]

I'm betting they included "free upgrade to vista" offers for copies of XP sold for the year prior to vista.

Nope. They cannot state those as current-period sales, and for Gates to publically announce that they were would be grounds for FTC action. I'm sure he cleared the statement through Legal, so I'd be willing to bet those aren't included.

If he had said that 40 million licenses were issued, that would be a different story... but he said sold.

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[grub]

I know a couple that have. However most of them have subsequently given up on Vista and reinstalled XP.

Most of a couple?
Anyhow, I love Gates' insinuation of "if you aren't using Vista, you're trapped in some pre-digital lifestyle limbo."

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[Skrynesaver]

AS there were 238 Million PCs sold last year, we could take a rough calculation of 20M PCs sold per month, thus in the first ~= 4 months Vista shipped -20M copies, including pre-existing vouchers !!

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[morgan_greywolf]

Ok, so let's assume the split is something like 39,995,000 OEM sales and 5,000 retail. So what?

The world's largest OEM, Dell, has begun selling PCs with Windows XP again and will soon offer PCs with Ubuntu pre-loaded. These separate, but related incidents come on the heals of complaints from Dell customers who wanted a choice after they had tried Windows Vista and discovered it sucks.

40 million licenses != 40 million Vista users.

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[heinousjay]

That hardly matters from Microsoft's perspective. They've booked the revenue. They get the income. That's the goal, remember. Tearing the numbers apart in throes of pedantic ecstasy is just masturbation.

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[Maxo-Texas]

Except if those OS's are not running on actual PC's and generating sales of secondary software then Microsoft finally loses it's network affect benefits of being ubiquous.

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[value_added]

Nope. They cannot state those as current-period sales, and for Gates to publically announce that they were would be grounds for FTC action. I'm sure he cleared the statement through Legal, so I'd be willing to bet those aren't included.

I strongly doubt whether Gates needs to check with the folks in Legal when the folks in Accounting will do just fine.

And since neither you nor I works in that area, we'll have to defer to someone more qualified or at least informed to comment as to how the sales were booked and the rationale used. In the interim, lets enjoy the wild speculation, trusting in the notion that there's a grain of truth to all rumours.

Re:Where did they get these numbers?

[jumping jeff]

How did they get those numbers, they changed the rules.

Microsoft is stacking the channel as this article points out http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/stack ing_vista_licenses_too_high.html

They previously counted XP sales after leaving the sales channel (installed on a machine) instead of just going out to retailers and they included upgrade coupons. So all of that floating inventory that is "in the sales channel" is counting as sales.

They also didn't account for higher sales of PCs.

If you were buying a PC and you could get XP or Vista installed on it, which would you choose. Now if you don't have a choice, then it's a Vista sale, though not a willing one.

Still doesn't say

[zappepcs]

who these licenses are being sold to. If half of them were sold to only two OEMs, its not saying much really. If even half of them were bought off the shelf at Best Buy or other stores, that would say something. So, exactly who is buying these licenses?

Re:Still doesn't say

[justkarl]

There's another catch. Since Vista's inception, my company has bought several hundred Dell boxes(with Vista preloaded). However, we don't use Vista, we still use XP because we don't trust Vista with our network...

Re:Still doesn't say

[jellomizer]

There are many ways to inflate those values.
First the fact that Vista Is on most new PCs sold today. So what are the sales of PC's Sold starting Jan 31, 2007.
Next are these sales considered sales to stores So Best Buy Buys 100 copies at its store and they sit on the shelf for weeks. The Free Vista Upgrade from XP deal. Corprate Licenenses, they buy the new versions but takes years for them to install them. Sales doesn't always equate to user base. But still what do you expect. 95% of the market sells computers with Windows on it. They are not going to make there systems look bad by putting the Basic Version on their systems. They will always put the latest version of windows on their system unless thier customers request other wise. A lot of these system people had were from 2000 - 2002 and it is time for an upgrade.

Re:Still doesn't say

[MindStalker]

The catch is the fact that the more expensive premium editions are accounting for 78 percent of their sales. The people who don't want Vista aren't buying the premium editions.

Re:Still doesn't say

[AndyCR]

The lowest edition I could get with my new laptop was Home Premium.

Re:Still doesn't say

[owlstead]

Exactly, in the Netherlands at least only the lowliest computers are sold with basic by default. All the others run Premium. Hell, even a 800 euro laptop comes with Premium nowadays. so the high percentage of Premium sales says nothing at all. Actually, it might be that the Basic version disappears from desktops altogether, because nobody might buy these computers without Premium. It's more that Basic is for loosers, and all the other guys get Premium, than that Premium is the odd one out.

Roman Numerals?

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Roman Numerals?

[eln]

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.

Re:Roman Numerals?

[Diss Champ]

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.

Waiting for it...

[M-Saunders]

I hate Microsoft as much as the next man, but I'll be entertained to see how some Slashdotters twist this into being "bad for Microsoft" or something. Every other day I see some comment like "The end is here for Microsoft" or "It's all over for MS" or some such nonsense. Let's see:

1) Record profits in the last year
2) Fastest-selling OS in history

It's only getting better for them, isn't it? We need another way to fight them...

Re:Waiting for it...

[danbert8]

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!

Re:Waiting for it...

[Richard Steiner]

Record-setting profits are easy when the profit margin is 80%+, and selling quickly is easy when each new PC sold has a copy of your product bundled with it.

That removes things like production costs and consumer choice from the equation. :-)

We already fought them in court, and won. It's hard to gain much ground, however, when some elements of the government seems to be in bed with the company which is violating anti-trust laws...

what about enterprise licenses

[LiquidMind]

i'd like to see if they guess-timated / inflated the enterprise licenses number....

A: "let's see here....2000 companies with an enterprise license....let's count them at 10,000 individual ones"
B: "brilliant"

Greetings

[Rovastar]

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

I'm usually not a OSS fanboy

[bheer]

... but you do have to remember MS gave away Vista upgrade vouchers to folk buying XP through Q4 last year. I wonder how many of these 40M licenses are really XP purchasers claiming their Vista disks?

Anyway, if the claim is true MS must be breathing a sigh of relief, given all the "no one wants to upgrade to Vista" talk on the internet. (Of course, we heard the same during the 9x/2k->XP and NT->2k transition as well). Still, if you're a user with existing hardware and files, hold off upgrading! It's the sensible thing to do.

Article

[loconet]

Since the original link seems to have been /.'ed, here is the Reuters story on it.

So what this clearly implies...

[MillionthMonkey]

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

Fastest?

[Applekid]

"Fastest-selling OS in history"

That wouldn't have anything to do with having more computers in the world NOW versus, you know, any other point in history?

In other news, the world's human population is the highest it's ever been in history.

Both.

[RingDev]

It's a mixture of both. This is a press release by marketing to try to bolster stock prices. So when they mean licenses sold, that doesn't mean the same thing as copies purchased. It with all likelihood refers to the number of licenses they have sold to Dell and other major PC vendors, all of the free upgrade licenses from XP, all of the copies they sold to retailers (which the retailer may or may not be having luck selling), etc...

Vista isn't the failure that /. anti-MS pundits would have you believe, but it is a long way from the success that Microsoft's marketing department would have you believe.

-Rick

Re:Both.

[Not_Wiggins]

They may simply be doing what they did in the past: all "legacy products" are being sold under modified Vista licenses.
So, every copy of XP bought since the launch of Vista?
Count it as a Vista license (albeit modified, as it isn't really a license for true Vista).
Meh... someone else has explained it better than I have.

Re:I'm confused...

[Shados]

I should go and take some screenshots of articles and posts saying how Vista is a failure. The same darn thing happened with XP: "OMG! no drivers! Games don't work! its so slow! doesn't work on my 266 mhz celeron!", and now the Slashdot crowd spits out quite a bit that Microsoft is a failure -except- for XP, which is semi-acceptable.

Now we see with Vista? Same damn thing. "OMG no drivers, omg games, omg its slow, omg omg omg failure, I'll never upgrade from the previous version!"

Same. Damn. Thing. Hell, XP was worse: my 1 year old (at the time) lap-top had a hard time with XP, and I had paid a fortune for it. My 3 years old budget lap-top runs Vista just fine.

The only thing that can rival Microsoft's FUD, is the fud coming from thousands of geeks banded together :)

Re:I'm confused...

[AKAImBatman]

What am I supposed to believe: facts, or Slashdot FUD?

The facts. And the facts are the Microsoft has been deferring the count of "Vista Upgrade Certificates" until the first quarter of 2007. So a large portion of the 40 million is from Vista licenses that Microsoft has been selling for the last year.

It's also important to note that there are no figures on how many of those upgrade certificates have been cashed in for an actual copy of Vista. Which means that the number of installed Vista Desktops could be a mere fraction of the 40 million unit number that Microsoft is providing.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." --Mark Twain

400,000/day? Not really

[Red Flayer]

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."

Sorry, sales/day is not a constant. MS sold 20 million Vista licenses in the first 30 days (according to MS). 70 days to sell another 20 million...

Two data points are not enough to extrapolate a curve, but I'd guess that sales as a function of time is a logarithmic curve (based on early adopters) plus a near-constant (based on replacement cycles).

Can we have some more useful numbers?

[simm1701]

How many of these were bulk licensing deals with companies that basically let them run whatever OS was the latest?
How many of these businesses actually have moved their production systems onto vista?

How many of these were OEMs?
How many of those which were OEM have been reinstalled with XP (pirate or otherwise)

How many were free upgrade with XP systems?
How many of those used the upgrade and are still running vista now?

Its difficult to buy a PC without it!

[supersnail]

For all practical purposes you must buy a Wondows OS when you by a PC.
(Geeks can manage it but try getting a cool VIAO or ACER which isnt preloaded with Vista!)

The interesting statistics would be how may PCs sold with Vista have been back-graded to XP?

Judging by the various blogs etc. this would seem to be the only way to get your shiny
new box to run as fast as the old one.
Google "Vista The long goodbye" Results 1 - 10 of about 907,000

So thats 5% of Vista users hacked off about just one of the Vista bugs enough to blog or cry for help.

Give it until next year

[Bullfish]

The true tale of Vista will be in about 18 months (from release). I know for myself, I wouldn't touch Vista until the early adopters suffer the bugs inherent in any new MS release and MS fixes them, Ditto for all the missing drivers for hardware. After this time next year Vista will have ripened and be ready for prime time and we'll get an idea of what it can really do that makes a it worthwhile upgrade over XP. If it doesn't have any advantages by then, penetration will be largely limited to newly bought PC's and MS will have to do a rethink. If it does improve and become useful, then MS will continue on as it always has, and while some may not like that, remember that no one changes a successful behaviour. For them, it has been successful, like it or not.

Re:I'm confused...

[Professr3]

I don't take issue with the system's speed or games. I have a problem with the protected content path, and other DRM technologies integrated even further into the operating system than any part of WMP11 was integrated into XP. If I'm going to buy or use an operating system, I expect it to be made with me (the consumer) in mind, not the interests big businesses have to limit my access and restrict my fair use rights. I recently switched to a Macbook Pro because of Vista, and I must say, I'm finding that it increases my productivity quite drastically.

"beat Mac users" ???

[Gary W. Longsine]

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.

Re:"beat Mac users" ???

[khephera]

Suits me fine. It means that my Macbook and my Linux desktop will still be at the bottom of the list for spambot status :)

Re:"beat Mac users" ???

[DJNephilim]

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

In other other news...

[abscondment]

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

Re:In other other news...

[wilsonthecat]

That's a myth, lemmings don't really jump off cliffs

Re:I'm confused...

[mlk]

Microsoft is a failure -except- for XP, which is semi-acceptable. I though the Only Good Microsoft OS(tm) was Windows 2000?

Re:I'm confused...

[955301]

You forget so soon! XP Pre SP 2 is a zombie node waiting to happen.

You are using the term XP to mean XP, XP SP1 and XP SP2 & since all the updates.

XP is only acceptable because of all of the work Microsoft has done post release to bring it about.

Vista is *currently* a pos. Not SP1 through 14, but Vista today.

Be interesting to find out...

[Kythe]

...just how many copies of AOL are in circulation. Surely, the fact that it's included with just about every new PC proves AOL is a stellar success.

Pulling an Epstein?

[soft_guy]

When the beatles first record was released, their manager reportedly bought 10,000 copies so that it would make it into the charts. I wonder how many copies of Vista were purchased by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

Re:I'm confused...

[advocate_one]

It's also important to note that there are no figures on how many of those upgrade certificates have been cashed in for an actual copy of Vista. Which means that the number of installed Vista Desktops could be a mere fraction of the 40 million unit number that Microsoft is providing.

apparently I may account for two of those, although I have never actually registered for my two upgrades to be sent to me... Microsoft still got to count two as having been sold to the OEM... I bought to new machines at the end of January deliberately to avoid Vista... I wiped XP off both of them and put Ubuntu on them... it galls me that Microsoft still gets to count them...

Typical Microsoft stretch marketing

[QuietLagoon]

Trying to make a failed product launch look like a success.

Fortunately, there are articles that take a more rational view of how many copies of Vista are actually being sold.

The headline is simple, 40 million copies sold. Wow, we rox0rz! This is twice as fast as the XP adoption rate. What he didn't mention is that sales of PCs have more than doubled since XP came out. Silly Vole, no statistical cookie. The problem? Well, PCs sell at about 60 million units a quarter, and everyone we talk to expects sales of around 240-245 million units in 2007. Vista went on sale at the end of November for corporate customers, and one would expect a fair chunk of sales there from pent-up demand.

Re:Typical Microsoft stretch marketing

[QuietLagoon]

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?

Re:I'm confused...

[sqrt(2)]

This seems to be the most common complaint here on /. and I have to say I just don't see it in Vista. None of my thousands of gigs of music, movies, documents, or CD images of games and apps have failed to work. If there's some sort of DRM nightmare hidden in Vista, I can't find it. I guess you could say that the "features" exist to implement DRM on content (they're there in XP too), but does anyone think there's a threat of one day waking up and finding that an update has restricted all of your media? It's just not going to happen, guys.

Re:I'm confused...

[LWATCDR]

Except what do you gain from Vista?
Most people moved from Windows 98 to XP. They gained a much more secure system in that move and moved to the proven NT kernel from the 95/98/ME codebase.
The move to Vista? I see little gain but eye candy. DirectX 10 may be a big deal and the move from GDI could be important to some people but unlike the move from 98 to XP there is little to gain.
XP to Vista is about as good of a move as from 98 to ME.

Vista is such a small improvement that I am seeing wide spread interest in Linux for the first time. The FAA and NASA are both not jumping onto Vista.

A Clarification

[Red Flayer]

Hey,
The "free" upgrades cannot be stated as sales. The discount coupons sold can be stated as sales this year -- and they were. Total deferred licensing (Vista + Office 2007) was around 1.64 Bn for Qtr 1 2007.

Vista numbers inflated

[MacColossus]

The sales numbers include upgrade vouchers and workstation counts for volume license holders like schools and Enterprise customers. Of note, after the first month Microsoft claimed 20 million Vista licenses sold. That means for each month after 10 million licenses were sold (half). I should also note that of the Volume license customers, almost no one is deploying Vista. I have been to various tech conferences the past few months where this question has been posed to various business attendees. Everyone says they aren't deploying it for at least a year. I know of one small liberal arts college that is the exception to this. I should also note that many enterprise and especially education customers are ordering lots of PC's with Vista licenses attached. They then image them with their XP image via Ghost, Zenworks, LanDesk, etc. If vendors were allowed by Microsoft to sell PC's with Linux or without an OS you would see this number much smaller. I should also note that Microsoft's Volume License agreement doesn't allow you to install your volume licensed copy of Windows on a computer without an OS or with Linux. This means when a school who has purchased Windows Volume licenses from Microsoft is required to purchase PC's with a Windows license included. This amounts to Microsoft selling two copies of Windows per Volume license seat. As to the statement that most licenses sold have not been Home basic, almost all PC's are shipping with Home Premium and volume license customers are getting Vista Business or Vista Enterprise licenses.

not mutually exclusive

[Gary W. Longsine]

This really isn't a battle, as both "sides" of the argument can be more or less correct at the same time.

Vista might be the most problematic upgrade cycle ever in the history of Microsoft, in terms of slow user adoption.

However, the market continues to grow and has grown a lot since the last upgrade cycle, and the vast majority of desktop general purpose computers run Microsoft systems, and the vast majority of new systems will soon or already do ship with Vista pre-loaded. Therefore, Vista will soon be a raging success for Microsoft and within a year or two the majority of Windows systems will be running Vista.

The more interesting question is how successful will the spammers and botmasters be at migrating to the new platform? Will the Vista migration result in a reduction of rootable home user systems on the net? Will the percentage of email which is spam decline, or continue to rise?

150 million computers sold per year

[goombah99]

something like 150 million computers are sold every year. (it was 130million in 2004). And so 100 days is 27% of a year. 27% of 150 million is 41 million computers. Presumably 95% of these are Windows and sold with vista either pre-installed or a coupon for vista (which MS would count in their sold total).

So not only are the stats utterly unsuprising, but when you consider that the biggest surges in computer sales happen in the vicinity of christmass then 40 million copies of vista is severley lagging what one would have expected just from new computer sales alone.

It's interesting to note that the large fraction of pro-edition sales. This suggests IT department purchases or pro-user purchases. These are the early adopter crowd. Logically, this early adopter crowd is a one time surge.

Thus the the 40 million is under-following the general trend in New PC sales. Infact there's negative growth since something is offsetting the expected plus up in the early purchase rate one expected from early adopters and christmass sales. The logical conlcusions is twofold
1) corporate fleets are not adopting it or are otherwise delaying new computer purchases.
2) essentially NO ONE besides the early adopters experts is buying this to replace XP on existing machines.

Since Vista is supposedly harder to pirate than XP it wold seem that this can't be blamed on piracy either.

in short 40M/100 days is absysmal.

Re:I'm confused...

[cyberchondriac]

There is no Vista ? ;-)

(I stopped believing in spoons long ago)

Re:I'm confused...

[spun]

There is no such thing as slashdot group think. There are a wide variety of opinions expressed on this site, that's why I keep coming back. I think that the only reason anyone believes that stupid "group think" meme is because they believe that only someone brainwashed by group think could ever possibly disagree with them.

Get over it. People who disagree with you are not weak willed idiots infected by some "group think" mental virus.

MS Marketing spin at it again

[thestudio_bob]

Vista has sold an astounding 40 million licenses...

Accept or Deny?

Indeed

[DrYak]

If you read the TFA carefully, you notice that they speak about "Vista license sold".
Not "Vista License currently used to run the OS" or "machine currently running Vista in the wild".

Almost any of my non-Linux-using friends that I know to have recently changed their computer, got it with Vista pre-installed by default and had to either go through the "can I swap it for a Windows XP if I send you the media ?" procedure with the machine manufacturer or dig out one of their one "Win XP Pirate edition".

They are counted as "sold License". They don't run Vista any more.
So my interpretation of the data is :

40 * 10^6: Number of time Microsoft *sold Vista* (pre-installed on some machine at a time when the manufacturer didn't propose alternate OS)
4 : Number of users currently running Vista (and still waiting for their legal WinXP install media that they claimed from the manufacturer to come in their mailboxes).

What about our own dogfood?

[GovCheese]

Few MS products look good out of the gate. Then they do what we do: they listen to their users and improve their product incrementally. Same thing FOSS devs do - but we don't like to admit that because MS are evil and their products don't live up to our standards. However, they make a shit pile doing it. A company with 20 something billion in reserves and no debt is not going to go down anytime soon folks and its foolish to underestimate a juggernaut with their resources. I'm not a fanboi and I could care less how well they are doing and its silly on our part to fixate on how poorly we would like to believe they are doing. It makes us look foolish. Let's fixate on improving our own dogfood instead of listening to our own make believe FUD. Let's not stoop to their level.

Re:another way to fight

[ratboy666]

The Linux kernel has more drivers than Microsoft Vista kernel.

Linux distributions come with more software than Microsoft Vista distribution.

Openoffice.org is a very capable replacement for Microsoft Office. Yes, some things are easier in Microsoft Office. And I would expect that -- after all, Microsoft Office costs a whole lot more.

Yes, Firefox "does something". So does the Linux kernel. Specifically, the Linux kernel manages hardware resources. Mark me as failing your intelligence test.

Re:another way to fight

[disasm]

100% of the failure of linux is that it doesnt do anytthing (thats sort of an intelligence test, if you argue that linux does do something, you fail)

Well, I don't know how I failed that test... I guess being my router, my media/tv computer, my dev machine, my kitchen computer (for the recipe database), as well as running on every laptop/desktop I own to get things done counts as failure of linux. I guess I'll just have to go back to my Atari 800... And what driver is it exactly that's lacking on my 20 computers?

Sam

Less Vista licenses than PCs sold.

[geoff lane]

Someone elsewhere pointed out that since Vista was released there have been approximately 50 million PCs sold. So, selling 40 million Vista licenses isn't that great.

Re:another way to fight

[jlarocco]

since linux doesn't have drivers, it is essentially dead on the desktop.

Look, if you want to be an anti-linux flamer, fine. But please stop using arguments from 10 years ago.

My wireless mouse, wireless gamepad, digital camera, digital video camera, printer, wireless network cards, graphics cards, and sound cards on five machines all work, flawlessly, out of the box, on almost every Linux distro I've tried for the past 12 months. Right now, Linux supports more hardware than Vista.

There are plenty of good reasons to criticize Linux, but complaining about drivers just makes you look like an idiot.

XO

[Mateo_LeFou]

"it never was, never was meant to be and never will be a mass market operating system used by the naive users."

I believe a few million children will soon be disagreeing with you

Re:XO

[ghoul]

If you are talking about OLPC since when are kids naive users? Kids are the most computer savvy people in any country. I am sure kids in third world country villages will be better programmers than your typical corporate suit within 6 months of getting their OLPCs. But the point is most of the market for Operating Systems is corporate suits whose main job is not programming. They use the computer as a tool and not as the be all end all of their existence. For this most common type of user Windows just makes more sense than Linux

Re:XO

[DShard]

If naive doesn't apply to children I doubt it applies to anyone. Kids _become_ the most computer savvy people after spending time with them. The idea they will be more knowledgeable than computer scientists is so laughable as to be endearing. On the other hand, it is one of the better trolls.

Licenses do not equate to users

[GuyverDH]

Remember, every PC sold by most of the major vendors include a license (regardless of the OS eventually used on it)... What would be more important is the numbers of unique activations.... Where's that number? 4,000? 40,000? 400,000? Let's see that number (with the info to back it up)... Otherwise this is just optimistic marketing drivel.

An Analysis of Slashdot Groupthink

[spun]

Perhaps you are correct, but I think well reasoned posts, over the long run, beat out emotional appeals of any stripe in overall positive moderation. Meaning, if you want to say something popular, it doesn't matter how you say it, but if you want to say something unpopular, you had best say it with style, intelligence, and conviction.

Still, I think the sobriquet "groupthink" is demeaning to the slashdot culture and the people who create that culture. It implies that weak willed people are swayed to think a certain way by the group. The truth is that people who think a certain way choose to stay and contribute more frequently than people who think oppositely. Few here express opinions just to fit in, rather, they had those opinions already and have stayed at a place where those opinions are welcomed.

Perhaps that is all that is really meant by "groupthink." But the connotations of the word are different. Let's analyze this according to the causes and symptoms of groupthink as listed at wikipedia.

Causes of Groupthink
* Highly cohesive groups are much more likely to engage in groupthink. The closer they are, the less likely they are to raise questions to break the cohesion.

Untrue. Slashdot is not cohesive. the members are not particularly close.

* The group isolates itself from outside experts. In order to make a well informed decision, the group needs to invite qualified experts to help weigh the possible risks.

Untrue. Outside experts are welcomed and rewarded consistently for their contributions.

* Strong leadership leads to groupthink, because the leader is more likely to promote his/her own solution.

Strong Leadership? Don't make me laugh.

Social psychologist Clark McCauley's three conditions under which groupthink occurs:
* Directive leadership.
* Homogeneity of members' social background and ideology.
* Isolation of the group from outside sources of information and analysis.

All completely untrue. The leadership is nondirective, our backgrounds and ideology are diverse, and the site is about outside sources of information.

Symptoms of groupthink

In order to make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms that are indicative of groupthink (1977).

1. A feeling of invulnerability creates excessive optimism and encourages risk taking.
2. Discounting warnings that might challenge assumptions.
3. An unquestioned belief in the group's morality, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyped views of enemy leaders.
5. Pressure to conform against members of the group who disagree.
6. Shutting down of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. An illusion of unanimity with regards to going along with the group.
8. Mindguards -- self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting opinions.

Point 1 doesn't exist here. Point two happens on occasion, for instance warnings about Linux or Mac security might be met with skepticism. Point three happens on occasion i.e. "Information wants to be free and so does my entertainment." Point four, well, I can't decide. Are Gates and Balmer as evil as people here make them out to be? Maybe I'm already too influenced by groupthink to make an unbiased judgment here. Points five & six are the points you propose to address in your experiment, and I think you may be right, moderation acts as a pressure to conform and may shut down ideas that deviate from the apparent consensus. I don't think there is any illusion of unanimity here, not least because of all the shouting about "groupthink." I also don't see anything much

ALL of them--the story summary is a troll

[Overly Critical Guy]

Microsoft doesn't reveal consumer and retail sales of Windows licenses, only license sales to OEMs. They did the same for Windows XP. Microsoft doesn't want people to know that retail sales are down 60% from Windows XP and that Vista demand is so low, Dell has reinstated XP as an option on its machines.

As for "beating" Mac numbers, Britney Spears also sells more CDs in a year than Mozart concerts do. If that's the kind of victory that Microsoft fanboys want to trumpet, go ahead. Meanwhile, Vista is a flop.

P.S. Activation numbers

[Overly Critical Guy]

I forgot to mention this. Microsoft refuses to give out the figures for Vista's WGA activation. That would give a good estimate of the actual number of users running Vista. I know Microsoft enthusiasts are absolutely desperate to spin any positive press for the Vista debacle, but it just doesn't fly with people anymore.

Re:Here it is. M$ is doomed.

[HermMunster]

I own a computer store where I do installs, upgrades, repairs, custom builds, etc. On my main machine, which people see day in and day out as they enter my store is a wide screen high def 24" LCD flatscreen. On that machine I have Ubuntu linux with Beryl. Every customer that comes into the store gets a little treat of eye candy and then are told that Ubuntu is free and so is all the software installed on the computer.

I also have an Microsoft Action Pack Subscription. I need XP for certain games. In the subscription is a license for 10 xp pro 64 bit, 10 xp pro 32 bit, and 10 Vista business. Now the Vista business licenses are upgrades so I'm expected to upgrade each of those XP boxes. The reality of it is this. It isn't going to happen. I'm not going to upgrade those XP boxes any time soon and most of my 20+ computers are going to stick with the OS they were sold with unless I need to change them and in that case they'll get Ubuntu installed on them.

I upgraded a single computer with Vista only because I need to know about how to resolve issues with Vista when a customer brings their machine into the store. I also need to know how everything is organized. Other than that I have no need for those Vista licenses and they'll probably remain unused until the subscription expires--which will be in 6 months or so.

Microsoft was so cheap they couldn't even give me the Ultimate version in the action pack subscription unless I was willing to dish out 50% more for the actual subscription cost to upgrade. Then when the subscription expires I loose that money as well.

Of the machines that come into my store I have only seen a total of 3 with Vista in the first 100 days. I have had customers ask me about Vista and I explain what the WGN and WGA facilities are and how it equates to spying on them and then I make sure they understand the analogy of "walmart employees knocking on your door to search your home for paid for goods that you purchased at their store since you may be a regular customer". When they understand that analogy that's usually curtains for any Vista sale. I then tell them about how they drafted the hardware manufacturers into implementing this DRM technology and how the DRM is a locking mechanism to keep them from buying or investing in other systems. I give them the example of Apple's iPod and the music bought through iTunes. When they understand that they understand I'm trying to protect them and their privacy.

I assure them that Linux is the only product that will forever ensure their privacy and will never be used as a tool to lock them into a specific vendor.

Microsoft has been acting up. They've been a bad fat bully and people are really starting to despise them. You don't reward a fat bully by giving them candy and patting them on the back. You take out the strap and you don't spare the whip.

Microsoft knows they can just ignore any attempt at correction because they have certain politicians in their back pocket. They also know that they are a monopoly and no one can challege them in any short period of time. But sooner or later all these things are going to backfire and they are going to run out of new ways of getting around the laws. Sooner or later alternatives such as the Mac or Linux will pick up steam and Microsoft won't be able to stop the ball from rolling.

When the courts force Microsoft to disclose which IP is in question then we'll have that 800 pound chimpanzee off our backs and we can move on so that regular people can use Linux to do those things they want to do.

And frankly the guy that stated that Linux does nothing is so full of shit. When I read that I was like: what planet does this guy come from? What have they been feeding him there? He has no clue where Linux is and he's still opening his mouth. I wonder if he understands the difference between a copyright and a patent.

Our little story

[ducomputergeek]

Two months ago I was working as a consultant with a Durable Medical Equipement company. It's a small business, 7 employees and about a 800k in sales a year. Their computer system and software was still running on DOS. (at least server end) and as they were going for new accredidation they realized the old software just wasn't going to make the requirements. The software company was still in business and we chatted with their support team a couple times and they expressly told us "THIS SOFTWARE WILL NOT WORK WITH VISTA". This was back in January. They liked dealing with Dell. I'm a Mac guy myself, but in these kind of situations, one is stuck with the option of windows...or windows. They were a small business and about half their sales is through public aid. Anyone dealing with the government knows that you'll get your money....eventually. They were waiting for a payment to come in before they had the extra cash to purchase the server, two new workstations, and software. In total it was about $15,000. ($10,000 of that being the software). They didn't get their check until March. By then Dell wasn't selling anything but Vista on their machines and the software vendor hated dealing with HP (so much so that they simply don't.) I don't do service contracts. I simply provide advice acting more like a CTO to small businesses helping them sort through the FUD and answer any questions...and tell them when the sales people are full of *#$&#. Personally I told them to go with DELL because they were the only ones I knew would still be around in five years to offer support. But what was the install options on the new workstations? Well Vista and um....vista. So we ended up buying the entire system through Gateway. Not my first choice for several reasons, but they still offered PC's with XP pre-installed. Install went without a hitch and we sent the old box out to the company's lab to recover all 20 years worth of records and it was the first time I have ever done a major system port without loosing a single record. Frankly that was one of the smoothest transitions on that end. But still Dell was doing their same old game of "Only the latest Operating system from MS." and that cost them a sale. I got a lot of calls from businesses asking, "Do I need Vista?" With the chances that some of their software won't run, my answer was (and still is) no. Stick with XP at least for another year. You don't buy an MS OS until Service Pack 1 is released. It's just like my true mac head friends that want to preorder the iPhone today or purchased an AppleTV. There is no way in hell I'm buying the first generation of anything Apple. (That being said, I've been using a Mac Mini with LCD TV since it has a DVI plug in for almost a year now). I've been cut enough times, that I stay behind the bleeding edge these days.

40 million licenses sold:amusing

[reesal]

I must admit I am not the biggest fan of Microsoft's historic dodgy and wholly untested releases but you guys seem to have a real problem with Microsoft. I like anyone else enjoy and wholly support open source progression but i fail to understand the constant barrage of criticism against the MS OS's. Why? If Linux was so successful then it would be competing at the level that MS is - it has improved, is more user friendly and more widely supported and handled by private companies such as Red Hat but still MS are the top dog. Has it ever occured that if other OSs had the same level of usability and usefulness as XP/Vista etc then free market force would have come into effect and they would be competing? The fact remains that MS OS's are the best across all areas of the computing spectrum - that fact is plain and simple. Half the guys on this site have the approach of a poor politician by trying to potray factual figures differently. Even if 50 million PCs have been deployed since the sale of 40 million lienses and MS has a monopoloy - they had to get there from scratch in the first place - much where Linux is now. You all sound so incredibly jealous of MS's success yet have no factual basis to support any of your claims. Why is it that everyone is obsessed with MS bashing?

Statistics 101: Sales are not OS versions

[WillAffleckUW]

Remember, these are sales of OS versions.

Everyone who, like my entire shop, buys One Linux License and installs the same configuration on all 100 servers, counts as One Sale.

Everyone who buys a Windows laptop and then installs Ubuntu Linux on top of it, counts as a Windows install, but NOT as an Ubuntu sale (since most just got the disks from cheapbytes.

Everyone who buys a Mac laughs at the Windows installs, since they live virus-free anyway.

Those who believe statistics without analyzing the underlying precepts, are doomed to live in an artificial world that does not resemble reality. Have fun with your pretty unicorns, but don't be upset if I harsh your mellow.

Here, take this:

[Control Group]

[

]

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

Re:at least 39M of those...

[HermMunster]

These numbers are being disputed because it is impossible that these sales are to a consumer to be used by that consumer--many don't consider it a sale unless it is going into the hands of the actual consumer of the goods.

Your analogy is wrong. Those distributed licenses are more like consignments than they are sales. When a store gets computers on consignment to sell they can sell those to customers and the ones they can't sell generally go back to the company that sold them to you on consignment. I'm sure the rules are somewhat different for each company offering consignment sales.

In reality it is like the local baker that makes bread for various stores in town. The baker only gets paid for the bread that is sold to a customer. Those that go old and stale are given back to the baker or tossed by the baker and do not constitute a sale.

So, yes, they are saying that the license did exchange hands from Microsoft to another entity but they did not make it into the hands of the actual consumer for their use. That's a big difference. This is why people get upset at companies such as Microsoft that exaggerate these claims. It is that it makes others feel there's a greater success there then there is. It is an attempt at generating a fever in order to convince others to buy what think everyone else is buying.

The reality of it is that the hardware manufacturers are not experiencing increased sales and in fact, some leading hardware indicators are that sales are actually down. So, there's a lot of contradictory information here. Some from Microsoft which is now becoming the most untrustworthy company in the world, and the others from organizations that generally track these sales of hardware and software. The numbers that Microsoft has been touting are not matching up to the other leading indicators. For this reason people are trying to figure out why there are disparities. Without honest forthcoming numbers it'll take longer to see what actually happened. What Microsoft is doing is as bad as them sponsoring their own Polls and studies. We all know that those can't be trusted. It is only from independent 3rd parties that we can have some faith in the numbers.

So people are just saying that it is impossible that 40 million copies have been sold and are in the hands of the consumer that is actually going to use them (especially when you don't also state that the market is 2 times the size it was to the market Microsoft compared it to). The ratio of "sold vs. customers" is about the same or lower than XP sales. These Microsoft numbers were debunked about a month or so ago by very reputable groups, and even though this is the case Microsoft keep touting them as facts. They are facts, they are just misleading because all the picture hasn't been presented.

I'd estimate world-wide that there are some 50 million Linux users, probably more. Now that the update to Ubuntu is out I'd estimate a significantly greater number in the next year as Ubuntu is really a great desktop and it is a powerful desktop tool. You can do just about anything you want with it except play certain games or run Windows software. It is well structured, clean, well maintained, and once installed is good enough even for your granny to use.

As far as drivers go: the availability of drivers for old and new hardware is better than those available to Windows Vista users, even proprietary drivers. In Ubuntu you can even get proprietary drivers installed with a couple clicks of a mouse whereas with Windows you have to go to the website of the hardware manufacturer and download then install them.

This isn't to say that it is bad that you have to do that. It is to say that Ubuntu's implementation is quite nice and is very accessible to even the average user.

As far as things like playing DVDs goes even under Windows you have to purchase a commercial package that has the necessary CODEC to play back encrypted movies and then you have to install it.

Linux is extremely powerful an

Corporate OEM purchases

[vinn01]

I bet a lot of those licenses went to corporate OEM purchases.

We brought a shit load of Dell computers that came with Vista licenses. Microsoft got their money from Dell. All those purchases are on the Microsoft accounting books.

Then we imaged the new PCs with the the corporate XP license.

Number of Vista purchases: lots
Number of computers running Vista: 0
Ability to buy a Dell system for corporate use without any OS license: pipe dream

Dell is contributing here...

[SanityInAnarchy]

How many of those licenses are due to people buying a new Dell and deciding to go with Vista, rather than purchasing XP retail?

I mean, yes, they are forcing it on us as best they can, and there are still enough people who don't like it that Dell is giving us XP again. I really don't see a better time for Dell to ship Ubuntu, either. My recommendation to many people is: "Vista is likely to piss you off at least as much as Ubuntu is while you're learning it, and while people are rushing to release Vista-compatible versions of everything. If you're so determined to put yourself through the pain of a new OS, you may as well install Ubuntu (or Kubuntu), so that at least the next time around, you won't be paying for an upgrade."

Hm... lies, dammed lies and statistics

[Arimus]

Okay,

Of the 40m licences how many are licences which came with a new PC?

Of the ones supplied with a new PC to firms how many firms left Vista on rather than reverting to XP?

Of the remainder how many still have an MS OS on them (we recently had about 10 PC's for a client supplied with vista, they left with Linux on them - I know we could have got them barebones pc's but they wanted a named (not dell) brand)?