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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.'"
If my memory serves right, this is the 7-th article talking about Vista sales alone. Not Vista bugs, not Vista speed, not Vista features, just Vista's initial sales.
I think I speak for the majority of Slashdot's readers, that we don't fucking care about Vista's sales that much.
They mean nothing and the actual trend will be known in 8-9 months from now (you can be sure Vista will see decent adoption either way, because if it doesn't Microsoft will be forced to address the worst problems in a SP).
So please stop wasting our time with this. We can live on without reading yet again about Vista's sales, in context, or out of it.
Not many on slashdot care a whole lot about Vista sales.
Even fewer care what MS marketing says about Vista sales.
Nobody cares what someone else says about what MS says about Vista sales.
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.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
"I feel no need whatsoever to destroy microsoft."
As a Linux user, who also makes a living out of using Linux as a tool every day, I don't find myself sharing the same feeling. When Microsoft threatens not only my work, my income, but also my way of life, I can't help to see the need to see Microsoft completely destroyed. It's a funny thing, this "evolved" survival instinct. It is hard to ignore.
[alk]
I bought a pre-installed Vista machine and replaced it with XP. Being a monopoly on the PC, sales are bound to go up for Vista simple because people are buying PCs, and Vista is coming with it. That their Vista sales are lower than PC sales, in addition to counting the sales, shows just how many PCs are shipping without Vista, the supposed default. When Microsoft has a 94% market, why are their Vista sales only accounting for half of the PCs?
If you want to see numbers on popularity, try and get the numbers on people buying boxed Vista, and compare it to people who bought boxed XP. I seem to remember boxed XP flying off the shelves for people wanting to upgrade, but who's buying boxed Vista? Microsoft won't release those numbers because it will show how much of a flop Vista has been, and its only because of their monopoly that it's getting sold at all. Vista is a huge example on the amount of damage Microsoft is inflicting on the industry by having a stranglehold on the OS that ships. They're forcing people to pay for an inferior product on purchasing a PC, then charging them for XP when they want to replace it
The universe is held together with duct tape and karma. What goes around, comes around, and gets stuck to your forehead.