Vista Sales Up 47 Percent Since July

[Polaris573]

Tuesday Microsoft announced sales of Vista have hit 88 million and the company highlighted a number of customer migrations it says signify that users are gearing up to switch to the year-old OS despite recent surveys that say many are taking a cautious approach. Company officials say the ebb and flow of new contracts and expiring contracts means the overall number of volume licensing copies of Vista doesn't change dramatically from quarter to quarter.

In addition to the 88 million copies of Vista sold, Microsoft said 42 million PCs now have Vista licenses via volume licensing contracts signed by corporate users. Microsoft used the same 42 million number back in July when it discussed Vista uptake at its annual meeting for financial analysts. The Vista numbers were tabulated during Microsoft's first fiscal quarter, which ended Sept. 30. The financial results of that quarter were reported Oct. 25. The numbers of copies sold represents nearly a 47% increase over the 60 million copies sold that was reported by Microsoft in July. Vista shipped to corporate users on Nov. 30, 2006, after five years in development. A recent survey by King Research, which was funded by systems management vendor Kace, showed that 90% of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half reported they have no plans to do so. The respondents showed concerns that Vista would reduce stability and introduce too much complexity into their environments. "Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista," says Diane Hagglund of King Research. "Cost was also cited as a concern by some respondents." The report showed the 44% of respondents have considered non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and Macintosh, to avoid the Vista migration. A recent Forrester report showed that 52 percent of respondents have no plans to roll out Vista or don't know when they might do it. The study shows 11% don't plan to start a rollout until 2009, and another 6 percent are waiting until 2010. The study also shows that 88 percent of companies with 5,000 to 20,000 users have standardized on XP. In fact, demand for XP is still so strong that users forced Microsoft in September to extend XP's availability another five months. Microsoft's continued optimism over Vista adoption is likely in part fueled by the fact that it plans to ship Vista Service Pack 1 around the end of February 2008. Last week, it released an RC Preview of SP1 to 15,000 testers. Service Pack 1 is historically a milestone many users wait for before they consider migrating to a new Microsoft operating system. But not everyone is waiting. On Tuesday, Microsoft said Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Columbia Sportswear, and India's Larsen and Toubro Limited Engineering, Construction & Contracts Division are in the process of rolling out Vista. CHLA plans to roll out the OS to 4,000 employees over a three-year period, while L&T ECC has 2,025 PCs deployed with Windows Vista. L&T ECC plans to reach 5,000 Vista desktops by June 2008. Columbia Sportswear is in the pilot phase of its Vista deployment and plans to upgrade the majority of its 3,000 desktops by the end of 2008. The trio of users all cited security and management as Vista's top draws. Microsoft earlier this year reported that Continental Airlines plans to roll out 10,000 seats of Vista by the end of this year and that Banco Bradesco in Brazil has rolled out 70,000 seats this year. Microsoft itself has rolled out 100,000 seats.

Source: PC World

[Atnevon]

hmmm. Well when you discontinue your products of XP, and force OEMs to have Vista come with you, what do you think will happen to your sales? Seriously, Vista is great, but ONLY if you tweak the shit out of it. 90% of the population cant even tell what their IP is, so how can they tweak Vista to the point where it is even acceptable.

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by Atnevon

Vista is great, but ONLY if you tweak the shit out of it.

... and more basic than that, vista is a resource hog. If one used to get on gaming etc on a pc with 1GB of RAM, now one'd need at least 2GB of RAM for acceptable performance.

[Hawk1]

Originally Posted by Atnevon

hmmm. Well when you discontinue your products of XP, and force OEMs to have Vista come with you, what do you think will happen to your sales? Seriously, Vista is great, but ONLY if you tweak the shit out of it. 90% of the population cant even tell what their IP is, so how can they tweak Vista to the point where it is even acceptable.

90% of the population don't have the hardware to properly run Vista - they have integrated graphics, 1GB of RAM etc. and then complain when the thing doesnt look nice and is slow as hell. They just think they can buy the $200 upgrade and expect it to look purty and run like before.
Another 8% are power users Dual/Tripple booting with 2 tv cards, a NAS etc. connected to their rig so their drivers are going to suck ass. These guys and businesses shouldn't touch Vista for at least another year or two (if they know whats good for them).
That leaves the 2% who will be happy with VISTA. Thats why the general Vista sales/feedback has been poor.

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by Hawk1

90% of the population don't have the hardware to properly run Vista - they have integrated graphics, 1GB of RAM etc. and then complain when the thing doesnt look nice and is slow as hell. They just think they can buy the $200 upgrade and expect it to look purty and run like before.
Another 8% are power users Dual/Tripple booting with 2 tv cards, a NAS etc. connected to their rig so their drivers are going to suck ass. These guys and businesses shouldn't touch Vista for at least another year or two (if they know whats good for them).
That leaves the 2% who will be happy with VISTA. Thats why the general Vista sales/feedback has been poor.

tell it like it is!!!

tho I fit in the catagory of 'power user' with the right kinda hardware but i still think it sucks ass anyway. my friend had vista home edtion or something like that on his laptop. after sitting in front of it for 15mins he went online & orderd an OEM of XP. its not that he didnt have the power to run it. he just didnt like the Vista approach to things.

If i can get my hands on a copy of vista that looked a lot like XP but without the stupid long boot up times Id be pretty happy.

[sam0t]

What the fellows said. I have to troubleshoot Vista every day at work, and to be honest, the mainstream users would be better off with XP for atleast a year or so. Well thats a nice illusion, sadly M$ is shoving Vista down people throats wether they like it or not, in form of OEM sales.

[jocksteeluk]

At least 90% of those vista sales are from new pc bundles.

[EastCoasthandle]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

tell it like it is!!!

tho I fit in the catagory of 'power user' with the right kinda hardware but i still think it sucks ass anyway. my friend had vista home edtion or something like that on his laptop. after sitting in front of it for 15mins he went online & orderd an OEM of XP. its not that he didnt have the power to run it. he just didnt like the Vista approach to things.

If i can get my hands on a copy of vista that looked a lot like XP but without the stupid long boot up times Id be pretty happy.

What you want, and would love is Vista Transformation Pack 7
Download here

Side note:
XP (believe SP2 is needed, not sure) is needed for this transformation pack to transform XP to Vista.

[{JNT}Raptor]

It's funny as Hell for MS to tout those numbers considering they have been leaving the public no choice but ShitVista on almost all new builds....and when the customer wants XP Instead....the Vendors are charging MORE for IT to dissuade the customer.

LMAO.

[TheGuruStud]

Originally Posted by EastCoasthandle

What you want, and would love is Vista Transformation Pack 7
Download here

The sad/funny thing is that basically, M$ could've saved themselves and everyone the hassle of Vista The Worthless by having a conversion pack like this and just resold it as vista LOL.
I'm dead serious. They jacked up everything in vista except the networking (the perf. seems much better to me).

[lemonadesoda]

Let me get this straight:

Sales "up" 47% over a 3 month period, compared to the previous 6 month period.

Sales are NOT "up" at all... but actually, 3% DOWN as a rate of sales per month.

Vista is a FLOP.

Time for the marketing guy that tried to SPIN those statistics to walk the plank.

[EastCoasthandle]

Originally Posted by TheGuruStud

The sad/funny thing is that basically, M$ could've saved themselves and everyone the hassle of Vista The Worthless by having a conversion pack like this and just resold it as vista LOL.
I'm dead serious. They jacked up everything in vista except the networking (the perf. seems much better to me).

DX10 isn't as iron clad as people think. Just not practical. So it would have been possible for them to go that route.

...MS threw NV a life preserver and made GPU memory virtualisation completely optional. ATI, which had implemented a dandy memory virtualisation scheme got screwed, or at least got what everyone who partners with MS got. Oh wait, I said that.

In any case, in doing this, MS removed the only impediment to backporting DX10 to XP, it is now, and has been for quite a while, completely possible. MS is screwing its customers to force an upgrade and you are a pawn in their revenue generation scheme...

[eidairaman1]

only thing id like to do for XP with WMP11 is bring back the old visual effects found in WMP8-10, since WMP11 deletes them upon install.

[Ketxxx]

A slightly different spin, what does MS think will happen to sales with the majority of people buying a PC are idiots, so they go to their local PC store and buy a mass-built POS that the store clerk recommends, which naturally just so happens to come with Vista One day, vista will be an ok OS, I dont see that happening until the release of an SP2 though.

[EastCoasthandle]

Well? Who also will use vista transformation pack 7

[Ketxxx]

I'm using a transform pack. It uses the icons from when Vista was known as longhorn. Doesnt look nowhere near as gay as Vista, either.

[{JNT}Raptor]

I've been using the Vista Conversion pack for about 2yrs......great addon for those bored with the look of XP.

[Ketxxx]

If I can help it I wont move to Vista at all. XP will likely be supported for another few years as far as drivers are concerned, and by then a new OS will probably already be out or knocking on the door, based on what MS themselves have said.

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by jocksteeluk

At least 90% of those vista sales are from new pc bundles.

That's the truth for sure.

I still haven't even tried it other than on a VM, and won't because of the regular compatibility problems I hear of. Example: my doctor has a Treo 650, but can't get his contacts off of it because his laptop came with Vista. The sync software is not compatible...

Another two service packs and more work from vendors and it'll be all good - in a year or two.

[AddSub]

Another two service packs and more work from vendors and it'll be all good - in a year or two.

You are right when you say "it'll be all good", but not because of any service packs. For the most part the bloat and architectural issues that existed in Windows XP are still there, 6 years and 2 service pack later. No, "it'll be all good" because in "in a year or two", as you put it, the average Dell or HP/Compaq box sold will come with 2+ GB of RAM and ungodly amount of CPU power and that will make Vista run "good", even though in reality nothing would be fixed. Vista bloat/overhead is here to stay and nothing can fix that, not one, not two, not even ten service packs. It will be "fixed" in the same way Windows XP was fixed: availability of cheaper processing power, RAM, and similar. Bugs and issues for the most part will remain there, except the OS will run relatively smoothly so you won’t care as much. Same as with XP.

[Basard]

Maybe this is a little sarcastic, but, 47% of NOTHING is still NOTHING.

[Ravenas]

Nice job Microsoft.

Those of you saying most of the population doesn't have what it takes to run Vista, I hope this isn't a revelation for you. This is the difference between Apple and Microsoft (and why I think MS needs to manufacture its own computers).

Apple computers come optimized to preform very well with their OS. I believe this is the reason why you hear a lot of Apple users saying "It just works better" and a lot of Windows users complain about performance issues (due mainly to manufactures selling computers that can't properly run the given Windows OS).

[EastCoasthandle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRAUlK8_2VE

[Ravenas]

Originally Posted by EastCoasthandle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRAUlK8_2VE

I bet the people in the advertising department of Apple get paid a sh** load.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

tell it like it is!!!

tho I fit in the catagory of 'power user' with the right kinda hardware but i still think it sucks ass anyway. my friend had vista home edtion or something like that on his laptop. after sitting in front of it for 15mins he went online & orderd an OEM of XP. its not that he didnt have the power to run it. he just didnt like the Vista approach to things.

If i can get my hands on a copy of vista that looked a lot like XP but without the stupid long boot up times Id be pretty happy.

I guess i fall into the 2% category.

Anyway...you mention long boot times. I dont have that and never did. Sure I do some tweaks here and there and do a no GUI boot (which in my opinion looks better in vista than the damn default loading bar), I get around 25-30 seconds boot up. Maybe shorter. Dunno. Never really timed it. Just giving a rough estimate. My point is is that my boot up with Vista x64 isnt slow and never had been with either my quad core or my Old rig_2 in my sig.