Comments on: Gates: 40 million Vista copies sold

During WinHEC keynote, Microsoft chairman also announces several new partners for its Windows Home Server product, including Gateway and Medion.

[suyts]

I guess I'm one of the forty something

that can. A recent article in InformationWeek did a comparison of Vista to Ubuntu. Ease of installation were about equal. If fact, according to the writer, there wasn't much difference. Of course the writer could be biased, there is a lot of that in the tech world as you can see. The point is, there are alternatives. I would advocate another alternative for more than 1/2 the posters here, they don't need a computer. They should exercise their choice and not buy one.

[suyts]

Was meant as a reply to jelloburn

.

[jelloburn]

True...

Installation of Ubuntu was easy, but getting everything to work
properly after the install was insanely complex. Now, on a PC it
might be easier, but on my laptop, it was absolute hell. It
wouldn't even recognize my built-in ethernet.

On the other hand, an install of Windows generally will come
right up with all of your built in hardware working (for the most
part). I don't expect Linux to recognize everything in my system
(like my Wi-fi card out of my router), or the exact kind of video
card, but I would expect it to do a decent job of being able to
set up a simple ethernet controller.

[ethana2]

I moved to Linux today...

And I'm taking about five people with me. Let the war begin.

[richto]

So you probably just doubled the Linux population in your neighbourhood...

And when you realise how limited and painful to use LINUX is, when you get fed up with installing zillions of security patches every month just to stop your box getting rooted by the latest kernel hole and you realise that you usually get what you pay for with software and spend hours hunting for obscure device drivers for your hardware written by random programers with no support and stuffed full of irritating bugs, and above all when you want to play a decent game you will be back to Windows...

[richto]

So you probably just doubled the Linux population in your neighbourhood...

And when you realise how limited and painful to use LINUX is, when you get fed up with installing zillions of security patches every month just to stop your box getting rooted by the latest kernel hole and you realise that you usually get what you pay for with software and spend hours hunting for obscure device drivers for your hardware written by random programers with no support and stuffed full of irritating bugs, and above all when you want to play a decent game you will be back to Windows...

[jelloburn]

You should post a follow up...

... because I don't believe for half a second that you'll still be
using Linux after a couple weeks, unless all you do on your
machine is surf the internet (if you can find drivers that work)
and create office documents.

It's easy to say, "I'm using Linux now," but it's much harder to
say that you have Linux installed, and use it regularly. Linux is
an enthusiast OS, run by people that want to be completely
involved in working ON their computer, instead of the majority
that wants to USE their computer. Until Linux has a user friendly
setup procedure, file system structure, and drivers that actually
will work and don't require a terminal window to install new
ones, Linux will be sitting on the sideline.

This 'war' has raging for years, and Linux is still where it was.
Don't quote download numbers in reply, because those numbers
don't mean crap. Anything that is free to download and use,
people will try, but the majority of them are probably turning
their heads away in disgust when they realize nothing on their
computer works any more.

[J_Satch]

Uh oh!

M$ is doomed! Ethana2 and 5 of his friend moved to Linux!

[rcrusoe]

Sold, or shipped?

I wouldn't be surprised to find the distribution channel packed to the gills with boxes of Vista.

But then again, I suspect a lot of "sales" are corporations that are buying Vista licenses but installing XP. Most are waiting until at least SP1 before rolling it out in any numbers.

In a way I feel sorry for MS. It's got to be hard to spend 5+ years developing an operating system that has been such a big disappointment, even for hard core MS fans.

And if the yet unannounced features in Apple's OS X turn out to be as revolutionary as some think (wish? hope?) Vista is going to be an even bigger disappointment.

[jehrico]

I doubt it

"I suspect a lot of "sales" are corporations that are buying Vista licenses but installing XP."

I doubt any corporations are doing this. If they already have a corporate license for XP, why would they waste their money on a vista license just to not use it? I don't think corporations are in the money of giving MS $ now so they can use the licenses later. That doesn't make sense.

Why are some of you people intent on coming up with insane arguments that make no sense to invalidate the numbers? Just give it up, already.

[jesmac418]

40 million Vista users

Im glade Vista appears from Microsoft's view to be sucessful.
From what I have heard from the real world people.Many have
bought Vista but they wished they had not.

[t8]

Wow that is great Bill

But the future is the Internet and Internet services.

But good on you for milking the cow while you can. But I have to inform you that people really do not care about the OS anymore. The interest is the browser and what services and sites you access. That is where true innovation is happening.

[DrtyDogg]

Innovation

All made possible by Internet Explorer.

[DrtyDogg]

Innovation

All made possible by Internet Explorer.

[Phillep_H]

Internet services

No way. We lost internet for an hour today.

We usually lose internet about once a day, between one thing and another. (No, changing ISPs would not fix the problem. There's only one carrier out of town, unless we go satellite.)

[eduwebtech]

Friends Hate It

A couple of people I know needed new PCs and bought then recently, with Vista. They HATE it. They say it is slow, printers don't work, and is harder to use than XP.

I have used Vista (beta versions), and didn't like it either. Not because of compatibility issues. It ran slowly, and, because I am a 'power user', I found that its ties to other Microsoft products, like Internet Explorer, and Live.com, were too much. Thus, I did not buy it. I like XP.

My friends, though, are not power users. Not even close. And they still find it annoying.

I have used Windows PCs for most of my life, with the exception of my first personal computer, a 1987 Mac. And I really like them, and they have advanced immensely. But I'm sticking to 2000 and XP.

As for those looking for a new computer, I suggest an iMac.

[ppgreat]

Sounds like the line under the golden arches

40 Million Copies Sold!

I'm running Vista on my MacBook Pro without any problem. But
I'm just not seeing any great difference between a themed-out
XP and Vista, especially in functionality.

Yeah, I think it looks better (but it's only in comparison to XP)
but I'm not seeing any productivity gains over XP or, especially,
when I compare it to OS X.

I get really tired of little pop-up windows coming up all the time
in Windows and IE fighting Firefox to be my default browser.

It really is the showdown of de facto and de jeure standards. I
have to be acquainted with Windows in the computing world,
but, outside of a games or a quantity vs. quality software
availability argument, I haven't seen anything compelling to
recommend Windows over OS X.

And Vista is not the quantum leap that XP was. Or OS X.

[bobbydi]

39 million unsold pcs w/ vista!

Gates tell the whole truth- the new pcs are laying around w/vista after the pc maker pays MS.
Old trick of the Jackson 5 and then solo Michael Jackson was to advertise that every seat was sold(to a dummy business) and then only 10% buy tickets- The ads were used to appeal to those who thought they were part of something big. Same here- Gates is appealing to those who would want to buy a pc w/vista because there are "40 million Vista copies sold"!!!!

[dogatemycomputer]

40M copies sold? this is a milestone?

There are 9 BILLION people in the world, nearly 200 MILLION linux installations and about 2 million Mac installations. I'm sorry but 40M seems a bit pale in comparision to 200M?

I have a hard time believing that 40 million copies sold (which happens to include new PCs where you don't usually have a choice but to pay the Windows tax) could be hardly considered "a success". Heck.. I'm not even sure they turned a profit yet considering, even at 40M, they still spent nearly $225 per installation creating the product.

[lwp13]

Hasta la Vista

baby!

[lwp13]

Hasta la Vista

baby!

[mdburkey]

Vista Biz = XP Pro so sales #'s misleading...

These figures are very misleading.

Technically, they may have sold 40M copies of Vista, but that is far from the true picture of how many copies are really being used or how many are retail vs OEM bundles.

First off, these figures include all the Express Upgrades from last fall's XP shipments -- and, based on almost everyone I know who got one, most of these are sitting on shelves awaiting Vista SP1 before they will even be attempted.

Secondly, these sales figures include sales of Vista Business -- which qualifies for downgrade rights to a Windows XP Professional License. Every business I deal with right now is simply ordering Vista Business because there is no reason not to. They are then promptly imaging their standard Windows XP Pro rollout onto these machines. Based on my own experience, if more than 1 copy in 10 of Vista Business sold has so far been used for anything except XP Pro downgrade rights, I would be very surprised.

Furthermore, as an IT rep, I've so far had 4 people PAY me to wipe the copies of Vista that came on their new machine and re-install XP for them.

What would be a much more interesting figure to see is how many copies of Vista have actually phoned home to the MS Activation servers and are actually being used as Vista -- you can be sure this number is a LOT less than 40M. Quite frankly, if it is even half that I'd be surprised.

[DrtyDogg]

not sure about activation

But of the 40m licenses sold 78% of them are Vista Ultimate.

[xtreme999]

Since 1996

I bought my first PC in 1996 and been using windows since then. From this experience i can easily say windows 95 was the biggest success for Microsoft so far. Sure there has been many improvement in every os Microsoft has released but there has not been any breakthrough since windows 95
XP vs VISTA: I have been using vista ultimate since first beta release. Of course I keep my xp pro next to it. If i had to choose between xp and vista i would choose xp in blink of an eye.
Just my two cent

[neopin]

40 million probably true

So the 40million is most likely true, but keep in mind that the bulk of what Microsoft sells goes through the retail and OEM channels, so that means a majority of this number is companies like Best Buy or Computer City buying tons of pallets of Vista for the volume discount, or OEM's paying up front for large volumes to get the huge discounts. What's not mentioned here is how much inventory is sitting on the shelves, or warehouses.

[jaspal.m]

40million vista sold and i gues more than 400million of xp sold!!!

so mac lovers i am still confused about you people saying microsoft users are stupid,and rite now forget about xp,even the vista users is much higer than mac users and its just the begining.
Well you ppl should stop saying who is more stupid using what,but start saying that what you ppl like and keep with it because,by saying windows users are stupid i guess nothing is going to change.And even if even you says microsoft is a copy cat i still see nth that worries the users of it.
And more than 50% ppl who uses mac is also running windows in it...

[kool_skatkat]

40 million still less than Mac

have a look!

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

Windows XP
Windows 2000
Mac OS
Windows Vista
Mac Intel
Win 98
Other

Who really bought Vista?

[gggg sssss]

thats 40 million sold in 5 months

not 40 million comapred to all computers since Al Gore invented teh internet. How many OSX have been sold since January 2007?

[Ted Miller]

And mine....

Still does not work well. Latest move by me: Bought fresh from the store 2 NVidia graphics cards, (GFX 2600). One a PCI and a PCI express. Each sporting 256 megs of RAM. You would think Vista would love these cards, well guess what? My Vista rating on my HP computer went straight down from 3.0 to a 2.6. My wifes going to kill me if she learns of this one.

[jelloburn]

PCI?

Maybe because you have a card in a PCI slot. PCI is pretty slow
when compared to PCI-E or a current AGP. I think Vista sets your
rating based on the lowest point in your hardware. So, if your PCI
Video card is the slowest point, it might make your rating drop.

I would remove that card, run the performance test again and see
what you end up with.

[Ted Miller]

I think we are missing the point here.

Ok perhaps Bill did sell 40 million copies of Vista.

Now....

Lets discuss the 40 million "very happy" Vista users... Ummm minus one, which is me that is!

[Sumatra-Bosch]

40 Million Computers Shipped With Vista on Them

The numbers must be shockingly off from what MSFT expected to have Bill running around shouting about how wonderful they are. . . Bill knows this number is completely meaningless. No one buys Windows the way no one actually selects the brand of brakes that is installed on their new car.

Who can forget when an IBM PC shipped with a menu of operating systems available? MSFT worked hard to wipe out that choice with the manufacturers making 'sales numbers' a sick joke.

What is probably happening is relative to the adoption curve of XP at introduction is that Vista shipments are completely stalled out and people are now actively choosing XP and vocally rejecting Vista.

[Lex Man]

But..

It's still a copy of XP sold, if you buy a laptop with Vista pre installed and then put Linux on it, Microsoft have still earned money.