Vista sales not 20 million strong as Microsoft has suggested
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Microsoft has claimed they have sold as many as 20 million copies of Vista. Granted, that figure looks very good on paper but their definition of “sold†where yours and my definition of “sold†are two entirely different things.
There are not 20 million computers with Vista installed so instead of claiming that, they claim 20 million copies have sold. What they have not said is how many of those copies were sold to retailers to put on store shelves which may or may not have been sold to consumers by now.
Many consumers who bought computers starting in November of last year were entitled to an express upgrade to Vista with the purchase of an eligible PC with XP installed. These copies were thrown into the 20 million figure as well. Even at this late stage, not all those copies have been claimed, some have been distributed but the question remains how many people are actually installing them?
To take it even further they may even be counting computers sitting in stores with Vista installed that have not yet been sold though it really is hard to say given their unscrupulous use of figures, charts and numbers to confuse people.
It’s been estimated that only 3 million PCs have been sold since the beginning of the year in the United States. Since it is still possible to pick up new computers with XP installed, it’s a safe bet that not all of them had Vista installed on them. No one can say for sure how many copies of Vista are in use but it is certainly not 20 million. Yet another PR stunt courtesy of your friends at Redmond.
Even though this site is about Vista, I think everyone on the planet has to tip their hats to OSX which is not only beautiful but blends beauty with functionality. Vista is beautiful but it’s functionality is somewhat lacking, here’s hoping Vista SP1 fixes at least some of those issues.
It’s going to take a good two to three years before Vista sees widespread adoption and if you are to believe Microsoft, “Vienna†will be out just as Vista is taking off. How does that make sense? Well, Microsoft how does it?
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March 27th, 2007
That is exactly what Microsoft announced, it looks like you misunderstood that MS announced that there are actually 20 million computers with vista installed. No dude, whats the fuss and this article about, when MS actually did not claim any such thing
March 28th, 2007
Tom, I think Jonathan’s point is why is Microsoft bothering with this posturing of “20 million Vistas sold” when clearly it doesn’t really mean very much since many of those copies haven’t actually been installed or even sold to end users. Who did you say you worked for?
March 28th, 2007
Yes, that’s the point exactly. The numbers I would like to see are how many copies of Vista are actually in the hand of consumers and how many of those copies have actually been installed. I don’t expect to ever see those numbers as they are probably fairly grim in appearance.
April 2nd, 2007
Most of what you are asking is point less. How many people have bought a Mac, just to end up formating it and installed Vista or XP. I would.
April 2nd, 2007
True enough, but at least some of those are running through parallels, not boot camp. I would never uninstall OSX on a mac, that’s one of the VERY reasons for buying it, some will dual boot OSX with XP or Vista, some will run XP or Vista in parallels, they can coexist on a Mac, there doesn’t need to be this “either or” thing you suggest.
April 7th, 2007
[…] Vista has been available for well over two months and if we were to believe Microsoft, they sold 20 million copies of it in 30 days. We have discussed this before and the general consensus is that this is the wrong number to be concerned with, what should be the concern is how many copies of Vista are installed and running. Sales are almost useless if people aren’t actually making use of the product. […]
April 19th, 2007
[…] Microsoft has been advertizing Vista like crazy with the “Wow Starts Now†campaign, while they like to tout sales of 20 million copies, actual installation and copies in the hands of consumers are far less than that. I’m not going to rehash that here as we have discussed this before. […]
April 24th, 2007
[…] Then Microsoft, if it is so pleasing why isn’t there any exact figures to go on or is it going to be one of these “yay we sold 20 million copies of Vista†again. That’s not what I want. The entire IT community wants exact figures; sales are irrelevant if it is unknown how many people are actually using the product. […]
May 16th, 2007
[…] First of all, I don’t think they have really sold 40 million copies much less in 100 days. I find the figure of 20 million hard enough to deal with. These numbers look good on paper but Microsoft isn’t saying how many of these alleged “sold†copies are in consumer’s hands and how many have actually been installed. […]
February 16th, 2008
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