Vista Sales figures?

Do Microsoft release sales figures for their products?

I was looking at how low the Vista market share currently is (understandable considering how new it is, who expect anything else) and was wondering if the figures for the sales of *boxed* copies is made public? Is the current market share mostly made up of MSDN downloads? What's the breakdown?

It would be better if ModusLink removed their finger from where the sun doesn't shine.  Still waiting for 2 copies...

Most Windows Vista installs have been made by Volume Licensing to Corporations and because of that I'm going to venture to say that Windows Vista installs have exceeded OSX installs already. 

eagle wrote:

Most Windows Vista installs have been made by Volume Licensing to Corporations and because of that I'm going to venture to say that Windows Vista installs have exceeded OSX installs already. 

Thanks for answering the question, but what has Vista boxed sales got to do with OSX?

Does anyone know what Microsoft's Expectations are of Vista sales for the first quarter? I don't mean adoption, I mean plain old box sales. And I wonder how they're doing...

You asked for market share, Windows Vista is sold many ways.

foxbar wrote:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=boxed+vista+sales&btnG=Search - There are plenty of news stories that answer your question.

I am looking for a number rather than a percentage - unless you can tell me how many boxed copies of XP were sold in the first 2 months and then I can work out the rest myself.

It's likely that a thousand were sold since you began this thread.

foxbar wrote:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-277211.html - All this info is available on Google. "Retailers sold 250,000 copies of Windows XP in November, its first full month of availability, down from 400,000 in October. The October sales account for six days on store shelves plus preorders. By contrast, consumers snapped up 580,000 copies of Windows 98 during its first month on store shelves and 350,000 during the following 30 days."

So Vista sold 400,000 copies in 8 days where Windows 98 only sold 180,000 more but had to take an entire month to do it? Not bad...

Bas wrote:



foxbar wrote:http://news.com.com/2100-1001-277211.html - All this info is available on Google. "Retailers sold 250,000 copies of Windows XP in November, its first full month of availability, down from 400,000 in October. The October sales account for six days on store shelves plus preorders. By contrast, consumers snapped up 580,000 copies of Windows 98 during its first month on store shelves and 350,000 during the following 30 days."

So Vista sold 400,000 copies in 8 days where Windows 98 only sold 180,000 more but had to take an entire month to do it? Not bad...

Oops, I read that badly eh?

Given the figures are so high how can people reasonably complain that it is doing so badly?  Sure it isn't doing as well as XP, but it still isn't bad - is it?

foxbar wrote:

Retailers sold 250,000 copies of Windows XP in November, its first full month of availability

So assuming an even distribution of sales over the 4 weeks, and Vista sales down 60% of the first week sales - ouch.

Edit:Read it badly


Thanks for doing all that work for me - now, how well do you know WPF?

This must be a SHOCK to all the Linux and OSX trolls on C9, if you believe most threads here you would think that Boxes of Windows Vista were gathering dust on store shelves throughout the world.

eagle wrote:

This must be a SHOCK to all the Linux and OSX trolls on C9, if you believe most threads here you would think that Boxes of Windows Vista were gathering dust on store shelves throughout the world.

You're getting just as tiring as corona_coder(Beer Pt. II)

foxbar wrote:

Bas, the math is simple. It's a downward trend, Win98 had 580k in it's first month down to 400k for XP which is a 32% drop. Next Vista had a 60% drop from XP, so that would make Vista's first month sales figures around 240k. If you plotted the degeneration of sales from Windows 95 all the way to Vista, it could be very interesting. Maybe Bob X Cringley can do a piece on it.

Oh absolutely, it's a downward trend. You could explain that as "people are ditching Windows", or as "Windows is getting so much better all the time that people have no desire to change OSes." It's just impossible to distill any meaning from those figures other than "They sold less than last time." Cause and consequence are impossible to determine.

Anyway, my math is just as simple. Vista sold almost as much in 8 days as Windows 98 sold in an entire month. It's right there in the quote. It's just the way you phrase it and what message you are trying to get across. That works both ways. After all, Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, right? Or does that rule not apply when using statistics to point out something negative about Microsoft products?

foxbar wrote:

Bas, that quote is about Windows XP and the article is from 2001. That is the 2nd time I have pointed that out.

I'm very sorry that I frustrated you in your bashing.

foxbar wrote:

Apparently XP will be supported until 2014. By the time people have to get a new system due to security concerns, the free software competition will be more than adequate for most people. A lot of people will never have to upgrade to Vista in this current cycle to 2014. That's just a fact. If you think sales are dipping dramatically now from Win95, just wait until 2010. Dealing with stats you have to look at the reputation of the company. Many stat companies have been known to take money from MS and others to provide services. Gartner has consistently provided Windows positive opinion based statistics. I don't think CNET would have a reason though to provide opinionated facts either way, so I have no problem believing those numbers.

So the Year of Linux on the Desktop has been postponed until 2014. Outstanding.

Anyway, I'm sure the sales figures are correct, but given the high price of Vista, this is hardly surprising. The difference is that during the days of Windows95 and 98, Microsoft was alot more focussed on retail, which is partially the cause of the unchecked piracy they seem to think they're suffering from.

Now they really want folk to buy Vista when they buy a new machine

"Year of the Linux Desktop" is sounding more and more like the old American phrase, "The South will rise again.."

Each year it gets pushed back..