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Windows XP Still Outselling Windows Vista
nandemoari writes with an excerpt from an InfoPackets article that says "While Microsoft excitedly tries to sway public opinion by touting that Windows Vista License sales top 180 Million units, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was busy smacking Microsoft down — reportedly shipping PCs with a Vista Business license but with Windows XP pre-loaded in the majority of business computers sold since the June 30 Windows XP execution date established by Microsoft — casting a lot of doubt over how many copies of Vista have actually been sold."
Wow. Although quoting the statistics from "a survey reportedly conducted by a systems management appliance company" is mighty vague, I'll bet it's not far off. Add to that the rise of the netbook, and it's just looking better and better for Linux.
Caveat Utilitor
'cause Microsoft still gets the $$$, no matter what OS sells more...
[insert lame sig here]
There is absolutely no reason to run any variety of Windows as a web browser or email checker as far as I'm concerned. Most distributions of Linux are easy enough for anyone to use.
I wonder what Microsoft's thinking. Vista does have _some_ nice features, but a very long list of things to worry about. Every one of my IT peers I've talked to (I'm a desktop systems guy) has said their large company is putting off Vista migrations and waiting for Windows 7. We are too, not because we hate it, but because it's just not necessary yet.
It's been a pretty bad combination of factors:
- Features cut from the original Vista release that might have made it worth the pain
- IT departments who just spent 6 years getting XP stable enough
- Bad economy means that IT departments are cutting back, so it's not feasable to implement Vista even if you're a volume license customer. No one has time to research it properly with a reduced staff.
- XP SP3 is out, and is looking really good.
- Just a general "Oh no, here we go with a new OS again" malaise across IT departments in general.
Small businesses, on the other hand, are perfect Vista candidates. 3-user companies who don't run anything more complex than QuickBooks are Vista's target market right now. And now that it's on every computer you buy at any retail store, there's no reason for a small business to switch back. Large companies are basically not affected by June 30th because we can just buy Vista licenses and downgrade, which explains the inflated sales numbers.
On the "big company" side, I have lots of fun stuff to deal with. Internal web-based apps that were written when ActiveX was king. Business critical software last updated in 1996 and sometimes even before that. A constant mix of brand-new and 8-year-old hardware. Plus a user population that's not necessarily the earliest adopters.
I really hope Microsoft has something big planned for the next release. Swithing to Linux or Mac is totally not feasable for us (again, when you don't have 20 years of legacy Windows code to deal with, it's definitely a consideration.) It would take another major flop on their part to even think about migrating some of our business apps away from Windows.
The quote in the summary misunderstands the slight-of-hand going on in an illustrative way. The controversy IN NO WAY casts doubt on how many copies of Vista have been SOLD. It casts doubt on how many copies of Vista are INSTALLED and being USED.
All the HP sales involve the sale of a Vista license. They're just installing XP instead of Vista (something the Vista license expressly allows). The customer's paying for a Vista license.
The clever marketing trick is MS would like you to believe the 2 numbers are similar, desipte significant evidence to the contrary. They want you to look at the big "sold Vista licenses" number and think "Wow, a lot of people are USING Vista".
There is no real advantage to upgrading to Vista or BluRay for most people
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Who modded this insightful?
I suppose you believed Bill Clinton when he said he did not inhale (right) and that other time when it all depended on what the meaning of is *IS*...
I needed a copy of Windows XP for my Dell, but in compliance with Ebay's policy, software could only be sold with hardware.
So, I ordered a metal blank case slot cover that said Dell on it, and what do you know? It came with a free copy of Windows XP Professional SP2 for Dell OEM PC's...
Does this mean that metal case bracket sales are up? NO decidedly not.
Even if Microsoft shipped a glazed canned ham and a 6-Pack of Bawlz with a downgrade disk copy of WinXP, they still sold a copy of XP (and some other crap people did not really want). This would not entitle the canned ham department over at Microsoft to claim superior sales versus XP at this point...
-Nobody pays the premium OEM charge for their "downgrade to XP rights and media disk" unless they intend on NOT using Vista and only using XP...
So driving someplace and paying for software is a better than downloading free software?
For my dad? Fuck yes. I'm not tech support.
No worse than learning Vista, or the new version of Office, etc.. I've deployed a number of Linux desktops for a number of large companies. The workers have to be trained on anything they get. The advantages of a centrally managed Linux environment with locked down browser and OO is far more useful than a full blown XP desktop. Fewer techs required to support, can use older or less powerful hardware plus it's harder for users to screw up the system permanently (nothing a kickstart rebuild can't fix).
Usually, I would say the reason for Vista not selling is that XP is just a very good and stable OS and there is no need. Unlike the switch from 95 to 98 to XP, which was needed because the former Systems constantly crashed.
The same strategy seems to work for many other companys though... e.g. who needs the latest Photoshop, when you can archieve the same functionality with some freeware-plugins? Still, it sells like sliced bread. What's the difference?
WinXP is no longer for sale, so how can it be outselling anything?
" reportedly shipping PCs with a Vista Business license but with Windows XP pre-loaded in the majority of business computers sold since the June 30 Windows XP execution date established by Microsoft â" casting a lot of doubt over how many copies of Vista have actually been sold."
While there may be doubt over how many have actually been sold, what this datapoint highlights is not how many copies are being sold but rather how many are being sold but not used.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Well, GP didn't even mention the word "Linux" - he simply cited a statistic that showed Vista is not doing good in comparison with XP.
And besides, you have to remember that Vista took these 15% from XP, not from Linux. This is not newly-taken market share. It is simply a newer version of the same thing. In fact, it shows that only 15% of people upgraded to it, the remaining didn't think the price (or whatever else) was worth it. And since MS is cutting off support and sales of XP, this means these people have nothing from the Windows line to switch to in a few years (unless MS is a bit quicker about Windows 7 and it isn't as much a failure as Vista), and will have to look for an alternative, be it Linux, OS X, or anything else.
We have MSDN subscriptions for development and testing work. How are MSDN subscriptions counted for the purpose of this PR? Is each subscription counted as 10 Vista licenses since each subscriber can install 10 concurrent instances (for the use of that subscriber)?
How are the Action Pack subscription counted? Are they counted as 10 licenses per subscriber, or as one?
How are evaluations counted?
How are software assurance licenses counted?
I suspect that in addition to the Vista sold/XP installed sales, the number is vastly inflated due to non-retail and non-oem licenses.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
This does not imply that they did not sell an XP license. It does imply that Microsoft can claim to have sold a Vista license... it just so happens that they also sold an XP license at the same time. The trick is, Microsoft can't tell which OS the user is using (without other metrics like website reports, automatic update records, etc).
Gamers came over to XP as soon as they bought a new PC.
Those of us who couldn't afford to upgrade stuck with 98 since XP ran like a pig.
I wish to remain anomalous
Vista does not bring anything worth the effort, expense and hard work of implementing it at a business. If you have spent four years working the worst kinks out of a platform its really not that fun implementing a new one that isn't any perceivable improvement.
The only security enhancement comes from the fact that any security related decision is lumped onto the lap of your average corporate drone.
Its incompatible with scoures of business applications and some webapp vendors even tell their customers to use firefox on Vista instead of making them IE7 compatible.
If you have an older client enviroment that runs pretty well on XP you can rest assured that imlementing Vista will demand a rip and replace of most hardware.
The drawbacks are big and the reward is a step back in many areas without any benefit business wise. For most its a matter of holding out on Vista as long as humanly possible in the hope that Windows 7 will be right. Like a step back to let say a polished version of W2k8 for desktops.
The sad part for Microsoft is that they can only finetune what they have and lag behind everyone else. Any major mucking about in the spaghetti they trapped themselves in will b futile.
HTTP/1.1 400
This is not really surprising. Gamers stuck it out with Windows 98 long after XP Pro became the defacto corporate standard. It took a good 3 years for XP driver support to get to the point where XP outperformed Windows 98, and I expect nothing less from Vista. The thing that should drive Vista is DX10 and future implementations of DX, and that really falls on game developers before it will drive OS sales to gamers.
By the way I am a gamer, I use Vista, and while performance is not on par to XP on this computer, in most games it isn't bad enough to be noticeable or at least not to warrant a reboot into XP.
Parent post is spot on. This is something so many people forget when comparing Vista with XP now. Many of the people complaining about Vista are home users who didn't get their first PC until after XP SP2 was out. They know nothing about XP's first few years.
And in case you're wondering, no I'm not a Vista fan. For the moment, I still hate using it. I'll probably switch to it when it's been out a few years - just like I did with XP. But facts are facts, and rose-colored glasses don't change history.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I believe the number of Vista sales is ridiculously inflated as the only choice the everyday customer has is to purchase a Vista PC at their local big box store. Had a choice for XP been available, I'm sure the 'sales' numbers for Vista would take a beating - majority of these sales IMO are customers taking it down the throat as majority of them don't know better and don't have another choice. Business OTOH have alternatives, and hence the number of preloaded with XP units are high in sales.
You've never played Civilization, right? :-)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Whether more businesses use linux, or home users use linux, etc., is all pretty well a moot point, IMHO. I own and run my own business, and every computer I own has Linux on it (and none have Windows). Linux is good for my business, and for my ome/recreational uses, but how many other people use it pretty well means nada to me. When I started using Linux, I wanted to learn, and enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together again (still do), and, as such, stayed with Linux for many, many reasons (not just the price, the stability, the security, etc...but also the FUN, and the community). What's good for Linux is the Linux community. I wonder if overburdening user lists and forums with millions more clueless newbies is necessarily "good for linux". Mind you, everyone is welcome to come aboard, but, keep in mind we respect people who have a mind to think and the wherewithall to try and solve problems on their own, first, so, if you do come aboard, plan to participate constructively in the FOSS/Gnu/linux community...Because that's what's good for Linux. Participation in the community. Collaboration. Problem solving. Creativity. Ingenuity. But, volume of users or market share is pretty meaningless.
-- tonybaldwin.me
Because the real reason windows is such a bad product is that it tries to cater to people with your attitude.
The problem with that however is that computers are still fairly complex pieces of machinery. It is not so much that a computer is so complex, countless hopeless people use computers numerous times each day. I see people who have trouble opening a web page operaring unix machinery. Modern copiers for instance run on a unix system, factory machines rarely run on Windows.
The advantage with these systems is that they have one task and that task is the only thing they do and all their hardware is pre-selected and pre-configured.
Most of the trouble with PC's comes from the fact that so many people have different configurations and desires as to how they should operate. Easy of use goes out of the window when you want flexibility. Good luck programming a wizard that can deal with every network setup people have dreamed up in their homes.
At a given point, sooner or later the user when he is going to do something more then the most basic tasks on the most basic setup is going to have to get his head around more advanced concepts like IP address. So it is better if he is introduced to it gently overtime rather then having to learn it all at once when he has a task to complete.
Time for the famous car analogy. When do you teach a new driver how to break. When the car is standing still, when he first got it moving forward OR when it is approaching a concrete pillar at 120 km an hour in a snowstorm?
That is the entire idea between anti-slip courses, prepare ahead of time in a safe enviroment when the driver can take it slow and there is no real pressure so that when the time comes, he has some chance of knowing what to do. Sure, car dealers LOVE to hide the fact that their cars can slip, but a prudent driver nonetheless learns about it.
Same with OS'es that LOVE to pretend running a computer is oh so easy. Everything is automatically taken care off, you don't need to learn anything how it works. Until a virus destroys all their work, a failing drive that has been warning for months collapses with all their family photos on it, or they have to give up in dispair because they are trying to get a game to work and nobody seems willing to explain to them what IP means.
Most people have at decent enough intelligence to master any number of concepts, barring those suffering from a mental handicap, users can learn the basic concepts about computers and should do so, just as they learn the basic concepts of any number of things to help operate them efficiently.
Creating an OS that pretends you don't need to know anything about computers to use them, don't need to think is the same as producing a car that pretends it can never loose traction. Of course, that is not good marketing. But everytime you read a story about some car being wrapped around a tree when there was no reason (no alcohol, no excessive speeding) that is what caused it. A driver who thought his car would magically stick to the road when it didn't.
Same with every "my soundcard don't work in X", "I can't connect to Y" complaint. Do you realize how silly it is to just go out, pick up the first soundcard you find, plug it in and expect it to work? That would be like just buying a random piece of electrical equipment and expecting you can just plug it in, from the net (get it? Different voltages exist around the world and it is thanks to regulation and basic education that people 'know' this and can expect stores to carry the right equipment.)
Do you need to know what voltage your radio uses to listen to it? No, not directly, but those who do know are better of from not frying their equipment on holiday or buying dodgy gear.
Ubuntu is a nice version of GNU/Linux, it doesn't use GNU/Linux it IS GNU/Linux. The notion that you need less knowledge to use it then other versions is dangerous, it may work fine for a pre-installed system being used in a way someone else predicted and catered
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you buy a PC that uses a Linux BIOS but has XP installed, is that considered an XP sale, a Linux sale, or both? If both, then any of those Asus motherboards with a Linux-based BIOS should be added to the Linux column as well.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It hasn't been for may years. The thing that kept it back was pre-installation. Put Linux on pre-installed machines and people will use that.
People here will most likely complain that they can not put their distro on it, but the general public is not interested at all. All they want is to open the box and have a running system.
Pre-installation will also force hardware makers to have Linux hardware and drivers, which will be good for others as well.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.