Vista's 40 Million License Sales In Context

Overly Critical Guy writes "Microsoft's figure of 40 million Vista OEM licenses sold has less impact when weighed against the expanded size of the PC market, according to IDC numbers. The myriad of factors involved in determining success in the market makes Microsoft's constant comparisons to Windows XP less reliable as a growth indicator — particularly with Microsoft refusing to reveal the number of actual activated Vista licenses. 'HP reported year-over-year PC sales growth of about 24 percent, or about twice worldwide PC sales growth. Whatever HP is doing right, it's more than just Vista ... If Microsoft wasn't so hung up on XP comparisons as the benchmark, it could really demonstrate that Vista sales are increasing. The first 20 million figure really represented four months of sales, and that could have been positive data because Microsoft protected its customers' holiday investments. For free! Instead of making that point, Microsoft got carried away with making comparisons back to XP.'"

Comments

Please Explain

[asphaltjesus]

Why the media takes Microsoft's word as reliable in any way shape or form?

Maybe it is just a matter of there appears to be little market for _actual_ news as opposed to what is fed to the media from corporate/government sources.

I'd like to hear some opinions because I don't want to be that cynical.

Re:Article from April 18th

[figleaf]

There was a subsequent story on slashdot which said that the article you linked was incorrect.

Re:Did the world end ?

[GuyverDH]

It wasn't well done, or earned. It was blackmail pure and simple. Look, in the course of contract negotiations, all of the major PC vendors want the best possible price for an OS license. In order to get that best price, Microsoft has, in the past, forced the vendor to purchase a license for every machine sold, regardless of the OS to be installed. Even if you ordered your Dell or Gateway with RedHat/Ubuntu/whatever pre-loaded, the vendor would have to purchase a Windows license for that machine. If they didn't agree to those terms, they didn't get their price break, and may have been threatened with being left out of the OEM program altogether, meaning they'd have to buy full retail versions for each machine. No vendor could survive having to pay $200-$300 for Windows, and more for Office to include on their $600 pc.

Logical Fallacy

[asphaltjesus]

Therefore, Microsoft has an incentive to tell the truth about things like revenue, which would affect its stock price. If it knowingly lied, people would go to jail.

You must be new here.

The "truth" you speak of is a Accounting/Finance obligation, NOT Marketing. So, marketing can, and does frequently abuse the facts.

I'm not sure why it is you trust them, their security and interoperability proclamations have been complex lies for years. Their Vista proclamations are more of the same. At best they can be called misleading half-truths. Hopefully, the spirit of intentionally misleading consumers hasn't reached the Accounting/Finance department.