14 DAY TRIAL // There still are no form factors to climb to levels of success that are anything but a fraction of the sales of Windows computers.
Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer revealed last week that the Redmond company together with its OEM partners sold more than half a billion PCs since Windows 7 hit general availability at the end of 2009.
With the advent of Windows 7, the software giant discontinued sales of Windows Vista and Windows XP, which means that the vast majority of new machines shipped with the new operating system pre-installed.
“Windows 7, it's hard to believe it's only a year and a half since Windows 7 shipped. There have been roughly in that time 500 million new PCs that have shipped with Windows on them. The bulk of those, not all, but the bulk of those have been based upon Windows 7,” Ballmer stated.
According to statistics released by Microsoft, in excess of 350 million Windows7 licenses have been sold since launch.
The company still won’t say how many of those shipped to end users and how many to business customers, but from what I gather from the IT pros that I’ve had the chance to chat with, Windows adoption is quite strong in corporate environments.
With Windows 7’s momentum showing no signs of slowing down, it’s only right for Microsoft’s CEO to boast very optimistic uptake forecasts.
Ballmer already revealed that the company expects original equipment manufacturers to sell no less than 350 million Windows 7 machines this year.
This would put the total volume of Windows 7 PCs sold since October 2009 to over 650 million units, a number which will practically guarantee that Windows 7 will become the next top dog on the operating system market, dethroning the current king, Windows XP.