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

Re:Why is this here?

[hejog]

Microsoft is a pretty large aspect of the IT world... and I think its pretty interesting to see how Vista performs - with the DRM and delays etc.

But thanks for speaking on behalf of everyone at slashdot!

Re:Did the world end ?

[heinousjay]

If you're really that unable to adapt to your surrounding, evolution didn't really work with you.

Re:Did the world end ?

[Wicko]

This is just plain dumb. Why lower yourself to their level? Doesn't solve anything.

Like I said

[Master of Transhuman]

Microsoft lies.

Period.

"40 million" sales in one quarter turns into 30 million - or less - in four months...

Can you say, "Bill is a lying piece of shit"?

I knew you could.

Besides which, sales does not tell the story. It's the customer complaints, security disasters, patch problems, etc., ad nauseum, which will tell the story by the end of the year.