Vista Sales Double That Of WinXP?

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Apparently all the doom and gloom stories we’ve heard about Vista sales might have been exaggerated just a tad. Microsoft just announced that Windows Vista has sold 20 million copies since its release. That is 3 million more than Windows XP did in its first two months.

The world's biggest software maker said the pace of Vista adoption is at more than twice the rate of its predecessor, Windows XP, which had sold 17 million licenses after its first two months of release.
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I don't think it really speaks of Vista being a comparitive success as I see it.

I think it's more a case of there being more computer users now than ever before. The adoption rate of computers in the average home has sky rocketed in the last years. 6 years ago it wasn't common to have a computer in nearly ever home. Now almost every family has at least 1, if not more.

Not only that, but the adoption of computers on the buisness level has sky rocketed.

Remember XP launched in Oct, 2001. 6 years is an eternity in the tech world.
 
No edit button, but I was going to say that today almost every small business has at least one or more computers.

The number of home and business users combined has easily doubled in the past 6 years imo.
 
Also you can't get XP installed with a new computer afaik from companies like Dell.
 
How does 20 million in two months equate to being "double" 17 million in two months?
 
ROFL. Steve, you need to slam a few more beers bro! Might wanna re-read the opening bits of the Washington Post article:

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) said on Monday that it sold more than 20 million Windows Vista licenses in the first month since the operating system's general debut on January 30.

The world's biggest software maker said the pace of Vista adoption is at more than twice the rate of its predecessor, Windows XP, which had sold 17 million licenses after its first two months of release.
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Notorius said:
How does 20 million in two months equate to being "double" 17 million in two months?
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Steve misquoted the article. XP sold 17 million in two months, Vista sold 20 million in one months. Assume there are 30 days in a month, and divide copies of software into number of days:

Vista - 20 million / 30 days = 666,666.67 copies a day
XP - 17 million / 60 days = 283,333.33 copies a day
Increase - 666,666.67 / 283,333.33 = 2.353x more sales than XP

All in all, it doesn't surprise me. PCs are much more affordable than they were back in 2001, Vista is cheaper than XP, and the PC adoption rate is much higher than it was 6 years ago.
 
Lith1um said:
I don't think it really speaks of Vista being a comparitive success as I see it.

I think it's more a case of there being more computer users now than ever before. The adoption rate of computers in the average home has sky rocketed in the last years. 6 years ago it wasn't common to have a computer in nearly ever home. Now almost every family has at least 1, if not more.

Not only that, but the adoption of computers on the buisness level has sky rocketed.

Remember XP launched in Oct, 2001. 6 years is an eternity in the tech world.
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Considering that Apple's OSX took 6 years to reach 20 million users (according to apple insider) I would call reaching 20 million in 2 months a comparitive success.

Honestly, if anything is keeping Vista sales down it's the FUD that the media seems to be more than happy to help spread. My Dad recently mentioned how the news said that Vista can't really run on any PC more than 6 months old. My response was to show him his PC running Vista with zero problems and excellent performance on hardware that's 2+ years old. (amd 64 3000+_ (single core), 1GB of RAM and a 128 MB 6600GT videoboard)
 
Steve said:
Apparently all the doom and gloom stories we’ve heard about Vista sales might have been exaggerated just a tad. Microsoft just announced that Windows Vista has sold 20 million copies in two months since its release. That is 3 million more than Windows XP did in its first two months.
Click to expand...

Or maybe Microsoft is exaggerating?

"Hey, we sold more copies of Vista than 3.1! In your face, naysayers!"
 
I agree about the amount of retailers now forcing people to buy windows vista, and you can tell when its a crap machine because it will only have home basic on it.

Also, I purchasd a dell system for work, and to my surprise when I got my free vista upgrade, for some reason it installed Vista Buisness-N (Nutered) any idea why?
 
Well yeah, in two months, asasuming their numbers are correct, although apparently it was only in one month. It's a lot for the period of time, but how much did it cost to develop? Not that hard to achieve when almost every system builder uses Vista now, and to get XP you have to call or do something out-of-your-way.
 
griffinhart said:
Considering that Apple's OSX took 6 years to reach 20 million users (according to apple insider) I would call reaching 20 million in 2 months a comparitive success.
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Until you put it in perspective by saying that Apple's installed user base is a drop in the bucket, and the pc architecture dominates the world statisticaly.

It's only natural that the statistics you state would occur, so really it prove's nothing.

I submit that if Apple hadn't hung on to its proprietary designs for so long, and had adopted the pc architecture sooner, their operating systems would have a larger established user base by now.
 
One other thing. I REALLY would like to see how they arrived at those numbers.

One biggie. Are they counting UPGRADE coupons?
 
Yeah, the 20 million number is from the first month....the OS has been out 2 months (Jan 20 - March 20).

I'll edit for clarity. :D
 
jmackay said:
Also you can't get XP installed with a new computer afaik from companies like Dell.
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Actually you can. Dell especially, has offerings where XP is still an option. Just not on their mega-cheapies.
 
They might have sold 20mil copies but I do wonder what percentage of PCs that came with Vista preinstalled got rolled back to XP. I've switched so far 9 desktops and 3 laptops back to XP since software or hardware my customers needed would not run in hell on Vista.
 
most companies do not offer xp anymore, stores OVERNIGHT seemed to have switched to Vista. It's the THING, like people lining up for the wii.

Now this is a great move by Microsoft, pushing out a beta OS...tons of issues, DRM issues, with LEGAL material as well.

Its caused me pain with my grandparents buying a new computer without asking me first.
 
Those number do NOT reflect actual sales, but rather number of units shipped to retailers and e-tailers.. it doesn't reflect the number of units that have actually sold to the end-users. Those numbers have been absolutely dismal... go to any store and see for yourself.. or just call them. Vista isn't selling.
 
InorganicMatter said:
All in all, it doesn't surprise me. PCs are much more affordable than they were back in 2001, Vista is cheaper than XP, and the PC adoption rate is much higher than it was 6 years ago.
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How is Vista cheaper? I could get the complete package with XP Pro for $299, With Vista it's now $399. XP Pro comes with everything that the home version does; games, the cheesy M$ apps, etc, as well as Remote Desktop and better editions of much of what came in Home. To get RDC you have to either buy a Business edition (and give up on Spider Solitaire and friends!!!!), buy a home edition (and give up on RDC, not happening), or simply save $400 and stick with XP Pro....

XP Pro had everything Home did and was $100 cheaper than Ultimate.
 
DoggyDaddi said:
Those number do NOT reflect actual sales, but rather number of units shipped to retailers and e-tailers.. it doesn't reflect the number of units that have actually sold to the end-users. Those numbers have been absolutely dismal... go to any store and see for yourself.. or just call them. Vista isn't selling.
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It would not surprise me if this was true. The music industry used to track sales this way too. If the 2 million units that got shipped to retailers didn't sell and ended up in a bargain bin or dumpster, the artist would still get credit for 2 million sales...

Actually the only person that I know running Vista as a non-test OS got it in his action pack.

I'll probably snag one of his action pack licenses and install it as a second boot, or maybe on VMWare Workstation... I was not impressed by the betas.
 
It would not surprise me if this was true. The music industry used to track sales this way too. If the 2 million units that got shipped to retailers didn't sell and ended up in a bargain bin or dumpster, the artist would still get credit for 2 million sales...
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And the unsold ones were because of Pirates!! :rolleyes:

I too think the only way I'll try out vista is from an action pack.
 
MagnusDredd said:
How is Vista cheaper? I could get the complete package with XP Pro for $299, With Vista it's now $399.
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Home Premium costs $129, and will fulfill the needs of every home user in existence. Vista doesn't cost $399, stop using that number; it's $129, get it right.
MagnusDredd said:
To get RDC you have to either buy a Business edition (and give up on Spider Solitaire and friends!!!!), buy a home edition (and give up on RDC, not happening), or simply save $400 and stick with XP Pro....
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And......who besides an IT administrator needs RDC? And supposing for argument that you do need RDC, who the hell's going to be missing Spider Solitaire?
MagnusDredd said:
XP Pro had everything Home did and was $100 cheaper than Ultimate.
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Again, who in their right mind is going to buy Ultimate? Home Premium has ever single feature that Ultimate has except RDC and BitLocker, neither of which home users need.
It would not surprise me if this was true. The music industry used to track sales this way too. If the 2 million units that got shipped to retailers didn't sell and ended up in a bargain bin or dumpster, the artist would still get credit for 2 million sales...
Click to expand...
Everyone measures their stuff this way. That's why AMD's market share looks so good on paper, Dell bought a ton of chips and isn't selling any of them. If the world measured the number sold to consumers by number sold to consumers and not resellers, the world as a whole would shrink.
 
InorganicMatter said:
Home Premium costs $129, and will fulfill the needs of every home user in existence. Vista doesn't cost $399, stop using that number; it's $129, get it right.

And......who besides an IT administrator needs RDC? And supposing for argument that you do need RDC, who the hell's going to be missing Spider Solitaire?
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Calm down bro. Just because we're on an internet forum doesn't mean we're not civil around here. Second of all, forgive me, but with the comments of yours which I've quoted, you incriminate yourself as a bit on the uninitiated side.

To say Home Premium will fulfill the needs of every home user in existence is presumptuous, and I know many who have a variety of uses for RDC.
 
Not to beat Microsoft's drum for them, but I am really sick of people bashing Vista, for the lack of driver support.

Vista was in development for quite a long time. I think it is more the hardware manufacturer's fault, than anyone else's, as far as the lack of driver support. There is no excuse for companies like NVidea, ATI, or HP, for not having their driver support further along than it already is. The fact that Vista will not allow an install on hardware w/ out Vista-Certified drivers is not a bad thing, IMO. And the driver team at MS have built tons of new generic drivers into Vista.

As I remember, there were a number of devices, mostly printers and scanners, that would not work with XP, when it first launched. They were locked into Win98/Me. If short-sighted hardware makers, with short memories can't get their act together and support their own products, its not MS's fault.

I plan on upgrading to Vista next month. Lukily I only have 1 or 2 legacy devices that might not work--a joystick and maybe a modem or two.

Can you imagine if Microsoft had went with their plan to use a relational database, for their file system? There would have been a hell of alot more problems, with devices like IDE adapters, and probably some USB hard drives.

Anyway, Vista might not be perfect, but I for one will be buying my copy next month.:D
 
MagnusDredd said:
How is Vista cheaper? I could get the complete package with XP Pro for $299, With Vista it's now $399. XP Pro comes with everything that the home version does; games, the cheesy M$ apps, etc, as well as Remote Desktop and better editions of much of what came in Home. To get RDC you have to either buy a Business edition (and give up on Spider Solitaire and friends!!!!), buy a home edition (and give up on RDC, not happening), or simply save $400 and stick with XP Pro....

XP Pro had everything Home did and was $100 cheaper than Ultimate.
Click to expand...

Ermmm, Vista Business does essentially the same thing (and I think you get games if you select them, but not automatically), and Business is $299 as well.

The advantage of Ultimate is RDC and MCE combined- it's like a mixed version of XP Pro and MCE.
 
Also remember they "gave away" 30K copies of Business with the PowerTogether dealio back in November (one I got in on, btw). That was $299.99 x 30K = ~$9 million in free copies right there; add that to the 30K copies of Office 2007 Pro they offered in the same promo and wham, it's roughly $25 million out the door, poof, gone, vanished...

Ho hum. Would be nice to have some of that money, wouldn't it? :)
 
As has been previously stated in other posts, while the number is larger than XP's debut, the fact is that the installed computer base is now much larger than it was when XP rolled out the door. So, a better stat would be percentages of vista per total computers that could run it. The twist is that MS makes money on units sold, and the stat is irrelevant to them.

I won't upgrade yet, because I don't need DRM right now. However, it will be forced on me by the yolk of the media publishing empires, I see it coming like a storm on the horizon, or that slow motion time expanding you-can-see-the-car-you-are-about-to-hit that ran the stop light and there is nothing you can do about it.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
Also remember they "gave away" 30K copies of Business with the PowerTogether dealio back in November (one I got in on, btw). That was $299.99 x 30K = ~$9 million in free copies right there; add that to the 30K copies of Office 2007 Pro they offered in the same promo and wham, it's roughly $25 million out the door, poof, gone, vanished...

Ho hum. Would be nice to have some of that money, wouldn't it? :)
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IIRC, they gave away a lot of copies of XP too, so I wouldn't really count that.

And......who besides an IT administrator needs RDC? And supposing for argument that you do need RDC, who the hell's going to be missing Spider Solitaire?
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To be perfectly fair, remote desktop is rather useful to put onto your parents' or grandparents' computer. That way, when they call you and say "it's not working right," or something along those lines, you can fix the problem remotely, rather than trying to guide them through it over the phone.
 
Killa|3yte said:
quoted, you incriminate yourself as a bit on the uninitiated side.

To say Home Premium will fulfill the needs of every home user in existence is presumptuous, and I know many who have a variety of uses for RDC.
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I'll agree that Home Premium isn't a good comparison but neither is Vista Ultimate. The version of Vista directly comparible to XP Pro is Vista Business Edition which was the same cost of XP Pro.
 
The facts are:

In spite of the fact that a large people want to see Vista considered a failure. the OS:
-Has still outsold XP even taking into account the PC market doubling since XP was released.
-It already has a better security record than any previous version of windows or any of its competition on any platform.

Mis-information about Vista is rampant out there and there seems to be a genuine hostility about it. Yet, at the very least it is as successful as XP was at release. I don't think anyone considered XP's release a failure.
 
IMO. vista is being shoehorned in on the systems that are for sale today. I was in a store yesterday buying a system for an older gentleman I help on occasion. There 3 systems all with vista and only one has a vid card that works smoothly. a nvidia 6150 does not work well with vista. It is slow scrolling and refreshing. almost unusable. Nothing against microsoft except for the fact that they are probably stick and carroting the resellers into using vista. there was not natural progression to switching over. No one to say this system is too slow. everyone of the systems for sale has vista whether it was ready or not.
 
I have trouble believing M$. A little fudging of the sales figures is nothing to a company that has been caught misbehaving in many areas before. Like spyware on your computer, "Windows Genuine Advantage", comes to mind. If you don't install it, it shows up in automatic updates frequently. There's other things, too. The truth about Vista will surface, eventually.

I might give it a try in a year or so....
 
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