Posted on 12/04/2012 6:07:15 AM PST by SmokingJoe
Sales of the Windows 8 operating system, which was launched on October 26, were driven by upgrades rather than users purchasing the software on new machines, according to Reuters.
Microsoft sold 60 million Windows 7 licenses in two months, compare to 40 million licenses of Windows 8 in one month.
Tami Reller, finance and marketing head of Microsoft's Windows division, said yesterday: "Windows 8 upgrade momentum is outpacing that of Windows 7," speaking at an investor conference held by Credit Suisse.
Previous versions of Microsoft operating systems sold considerably fewer licenses than Windows 8 in a comparable period, with XP shipping 8 million units in the month following its launch in 2002, and Microsoft Vista selling around 10 million licenses in the first 30 days following its introduction in 2006.
In raw figures, Windows 8′s first month has been around twice as strong as for Windows Vista, and four times as strong as that of Windows XP
However, there is now a much higher volume of PC users worldwide than in 2001, and Windows 8′s upgrade price is far less than it has traditionally charged for new versions of Windows.
Upgrading to Windows 8 costs £43, compared to £88 for the full software package or £399 for the new Microsoft Surface tablet running Windows 8.
Many of the sales are to PC manufacturers, who in turn sell a large number of machines to companies, very few of which are using Windows 8 yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
When Vista was first pushed out, it failed to transition the XP Home Edition user in a familiar-enough way. But now, with the passage of time, Vista Service Pack 2 installed on a computer built for Vista seems to work very nicely. Not all XP computers were ready for totally successful upgrade to Vista or 7. Many users were led to believe it was easy to upgrade their old Presario or Optiplex to Vista and 7.
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=
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