Posted on 08/22/2010 9:53:41 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Last year at this time, Microsoft was in the final stages of preparing Windows 7 for its worldwide launch. The new OS was finally available to the public—well, at least that segment of the public with a TechNet or MSDN subscription. Those early adopters had to wait a few weeks after the official release to manufacturing date but still got a head start on the general public.
Those demanding and skeptical Windows users have now had a full year to stress-test Windows 7 and decide whether it’s good enough to replace Windows XP.
The verdict? Windows 7 has been a quiet success, maybe even a phenomenon. Last spring, a Microsoft executive told me that the company had sold 100 million Windows 7 licenses. As part of its quarterly earnings call in July, Microsoft announced that that number had risen to 175 million, and the company has projected that a total of 350 million Windows 7 licenses will have been sold by the end of this year. That’s a run rate of roughly 30 million copies per month worldwide, and it represents a lot of Windows 7-powered PCs.
Despite the big numbers, Microsoft has been almost eerily silent about its success. I didn’t hear a lot of bragging in advance of the Windows 7 launch, nor has there been much chest-thumping since.
The competition has been muted as well. When was the last time you saw one of Apple’s infamous “Get a Mac” ads? Hint: the last three ads in Apple’s campaign were released on October 23, 2009, the day after Windows 7 was launched to the public. With titles like Broken Promises and PC News, Apple’s marketing executives were hoping for a Vista-style wave of complaints, but they were as disappointed as Windows 7 upgraders were relieved. And then John Hodgman and Justin Long went off to spend more time with their families.
Meanwhile, Windows 7 keeps selling and XP usage is dropping. That’s certainly true at this site, where Windows 7 visitors now outnumber those using Windows XP and Vista usage has plunged in the past year. Here’s a graphic representation of how Windows 7 usage has increased among visitors to this site since its first beta release back in January 2009.
Thanks Joe!
Got a little confused with what would upgrade what.
The Parallels or VMWare XP VM on Mac OS works very well for that sort of thing. Negligible performance penalty.
And it saves you from having to run any version of Windows except when you absolutely have to.
Ironically, the first call I got this morning was a Parallels issue. Lol.
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