Microsoft Says Vista Sales Strong
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More than 20 million copies of Windows Vista were sold globally in February 2007, the first month of sales since its widespread consumer release.
More than 20 million copies of Windows Vista were sold globally in February 2007, the first month of sales since its widespread consumer release.
That is significantly more than the 17 million copies of Windows XP that were sold in the first two months following its release in October 2001, Kevin Kutz, a director in Microsoft's Windows client group, told eWEEK in an interview on March 26.
"These sales figures reflect global sales from retail, PC manufacturers and the Express Upgrade program, and indicate that we are on track to more than double the initial pace of sales for Windows XP, and for Vista to become the fastest adopted version of Windows ever," he said.
PointerRead more of eWEEK's recent interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer here.
While Kutz declined to break down the numbers by region or even for each of the six Vista editions, he did say that sales were strong across the globe and that many of Vista's sales came through people buying new PCs.
"Sales of the premium editions were also strong," he added.
These sales figures were compiled by Microsoft based on sales reports from its retail and PC manufacturers over the period, as well as from the Express Upgrade program.
But Microsoft-Watch is reporting that the numbers just do not add up.
"By every reasonable measure — PCs and retail boxed sales — Microsoft's numbers simply do not add up to the 20 million figure in one month," it says.
However, some Microsoft hardware partners, such as Dell, are seeing strong interest in the premium versions of Vista.
"Since the launch of Windows Vista, Dell consumer customers have overwhelmingly chosen premium versions of the operating system that enable them to have a richer experience with music, video, photography and other computing applications they choose," Neil Hand, the vice president of Dell's Consumer Product Group, said in a statement.
Microsoft is expected to disclose more regional and version sales details when it releases its quarterly financial figures in late April.
Some analysts have said that the new anti-piracy and validation tools that Microsoft is shipping with Vista and Longhorn Server will help ensure there will be little corporate uptake of these operating systems in 2007.
Kutz did acknowledge that, historically, there tended to be a rush of sales immediately after a product's launch, which varied according to the time of year.
