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 ...
Mac O$? From those Califags?
It’s Linux, baby. Linux all the way.
..if I can\could get security patches, I would use my XP Pro SP3 for 10 more years...
Incorrect. It may be 85% of the desktop market, but not the entire OS market.
As I understand it, W8 requires fewer resouces than WVista, being targeted more at "mobile" devices. I've got an ASUS EEE PC "convertible" netbook that also can function as a tablet (screen rotates and swivels to lie flat over the keyboard) that has a touchscreen and W7. I'm thinking about putting W8 on it just to get an idea of W8's performance.
MSoft's "will it run here" program says that W8 will run on it, but that the touchscreen "isn't fully compatible".
Windows 7 is actually pretty good, so maybe people are willing to trust Microsoft again. They seem to forget that every good OS from Microsoft is followed by a disaster, then MS corrects the mistakes.
I'm not trusting them any more. My next machine will likely run Android.
If you download and install one of the freeware “Windows Start-menu” programs (I prefer Classic Shell: http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/) and you’ll have a Win8 box with a Win7 GUI.
Regardless of adding a start menu or leaving as is, you’ll need about an extra 20% hardware to do the same things as you could do with a Win7 box.
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
This site shows the operating systems in place. Windows 8 is about 1% (or a 4th of what Windows 7 was 2 months after it was released)
If there are a lot of copies being sold, it is because Microsoft is buying the copies from themselves.
Which reminds me of another thing. When Windows 8 starts up you get a prompt that says “Checking Media”, followed by the word “Fail” twice.
Then the machine boots normally. The word “Fail” concerned me so I called the help desk, and after an extended period of being taken on and off hold, was informed that Windows 8 by default boots to the disc, and there is no way at this time to change that. So if you don’t have a disc in the drive it is gonna flash “Fail” at you until booting normally from the hard drive.
The Alternative-Release Law of M$ OS:
98 - good
ME - bad
XP - good
Vista - bad
Win 7 - good
Win 8...
Windows 8 is the new pre-employment training system for McDonalds.
The 60 million Windows 7's made them WAY MORE money!
“..if I can\could get security patches, I would use my XP Pro SP3 for 10 more years...”
Same here. If not, I’ll upgrade from XP SP3 to 7 Pro and then if I have to, I’ll wait for a Windows 9 or whatever they’d call it.
another thing, is that Windows 8 comes with new PC’s, but I’ve heard that corporations are “downgrading” to Windows 7 about 90% of the time since they can do that for no extra cost.
Well since this thread is about a desktop OS it certainly makes sense that the context of my post on market share was about the desktop OS marketshare.
DOH!
“If there are a lot of copies being sold, it is because Microsoft is buying the copies from themselves.”
Or it could be due to inaccurate statistics on something brand new
LOL! Point taken.
Aptly described. Downhill from there, in some Lenovo and HP models coming out, Windows updates are getting stuck during install, due to some weird incompatibility with AV or maybe the audio drivers, causing the pc to fail to restart (or complete configuring of updates). Various other bugs are being reported, which we folks not endowed with IT do not know (or care to learn) how to overcome. An even bigger hassle is possible when you actually use Windows 8 at WORK. Some people don't have extra time to spare, figuring out how to navigate in a new environment.
But if you're into games, Windows 8 is just loaded with games.
Thanks! That’s good to know. I suspect a lot of businesses are going to run this Classic Shell to keep employees from staring at sports and entertainment widget tiles all day.
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