Windows 7 Consumer Usage Officially Surpasses Windows XP
Windows 7 Consumer Usage Officially Surpasses Windows XP
Posted 09/13/2011 at 9:48am
| by Brad Chacos
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A lot of the talk these days – and heck, even the cover of our October issue – goes to Windows 8 guesses, predictions, tidbits and rumors. It makes sense; Microsoft’s making a lot of changes in their shiny new operating system. But don’t forget that the one we have now got a whole lot of things right, too. At the BUILD conference in California today, Windows Prez Steve Sinofsky beat that fact into our heads by dropping some jaw-dropping stats about Windows 7 in anticipation of the Windows 8 unveiling going on today.
First and foremost, let us announce: the king is officially dead. The consumer usage of Windows 7 has finally passed the old standby, Windows XP, at least in consumer usage (Let’s, um, not talk about Vista). How’d they do it? By selling 450 million licenses for Windows 7 since its launch in late 2009. TechCrunch broke down the numbers, and that works out to a rate of 650,000 licenses sold day in and day out. If that’s not the definition of “Selling like hotcakes,” we’re not sure what is. By contrast, Windows XP sold just 210 million licenses in 2.5 years, an even longer timespan.
Another quick tidbit: Sinofsky claims that 542 million folks use Windows Live services worldwide. If the amount of Windows Live Messenger spam we get is any indication, a lot of those accounts belong to bots and scammers, but it’s an impressive feat nonetheless.
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September 16, 2011 at 3:18am
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praack
September 14, 2011 at 7:22am
there is still the double counting in the enterprise space going on, company a buys 1000 Laptops, all laptops are bought and preconfigugers with Windows (Kaching 1 license) but the the company must have an enterprise license so the drives are wiped clean and a new install using the enterprise license is made. (Kaching license #2)
Trooper_One
September 13, 2011 at 12:51pm
"How’d they do it? By selling 450 million licenses for Windows 7 since its launch in late 2009. TechCrunch broke down the numbers, and that works out to a rate of 650,000 licenses sold day in and day out. If that’s not the definition of “Selling like hotcakes,” we’re not sure what is. By contrast, Windows XP sold just 210 million licenses in 2.5 years, an even longer timespan."
Did I read that right? Windows 7 so far have sold 450,000,000 legit copies. Assuming they're all the cheapie student or OEM versions at $50ea, that's a lot of money for Micro$oft.
On a side note, I think it'll be awhile before WinXP ever go away. There's still lots of legacy systems in town. Also, a lot of companies will stick with WinXP because 'it works' and stable; I saw some news footage about a local police station using a new system - run by WinXP. The IT head explained that they don't always necessarily go for the latest and greatest - just the most stable and supported and WinXP was one of the many candidates they considered.
LatiosXT
September 14, 2011 at 8:13am
The moment a person replaces the "s" in Microsoft for a $, I find their credibility plummet.
And XP will stick around mostly for one (or both) of these reasons
- The IT department can't be half-assed to make the change, because they don't like change.
- The entity doesn't have the funds to make a change or to fund training for said IT
I also use Windows XP at work, IT managed to muck with it so much that the computer I use spazzes out if it's not on the network. So much for stability and "it works". Then again this is an IT department that thought putting an SSD on an OS that doesn't support TRIM or any other SSD functions was a good idea.
And I'd avoid Windows XP simply because it's now a security issue. I remember when Vista was out and everyone was mocking it, then this worm or botnet surfaced and easily infected Win2K and XP machines, but had a very hard time infecting Vista.
If you really need Windows XP, just get Windows 7 Professional and install Windows XP mode. CPU virtualization helps keep the performance of the apps you really need.
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