It takes just 60 million copies of Windows Vista to totally eclipse the whole of Apple. 60 million being the number of Vista licenses Microsoft sold in the operating system's first six months on the market, considering the January 30 general consumer launch, and not the November 30, 2006, business release. This means that on average, Microsoft shipped some 10 million Vista licenses per month. By comparison, Apple delivered just 1,764,000 Macintosh computers from March until June 2007, and 1,517,000 machines from January until March, amounting to 3,281,000 units in six months.

The fact of the matter is that there is simply no comparison possible between the growth rate of Windows Vista, moving in the space currently occupied by Windows XP and Mac OS X Tiger, Apple's two-year-old operating system. "So let's talk about deployment. So this is a new number for you: 60 million units sold to date. So really if you do over the last six months since our consumer launch, 60 million units have been sold of Windows Vista into the marketplace. And you know by our math we eclipse the entire install base of Apple in the first five weeks that this product shipped," revealed Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer.

Turner added that Vista has contributed decisively to the company's solid revenue growth in the 2007 fiscal year ended on June 30. "And as you look at it in terms of revenue for us, which we had high expectations for Vista, but also in terms of dollar growth. So year-over-year revenue growth of 14 percent, net revenue growth dollar year-over-year was $1.9 billion-that's the biggest net revenue growth in Windows history. And, as you look at that, 14 percent was certainly a very good number for us last year. You know, the numbers that we've given you for this next year from a guidance standpoint around GAAP and what our growth is going to be in Windows Client is around 9 to 10 percent growth-so again another healthy year we're forecasting or projecting for FY '08 in the Windows Client area," Turner explained.

At the end of June 2007, Windows Vista accounted for a share of 4,52% of the operating system market. This made it the second most popular Windows platform after Windows XP, of course. At the same time, XP owned 81.94% while Apple had 6%. Following the new numbers from Microsoft, it appears that Vista has surpassed Mac OS X. However, the Redmond company announced 40 million sold licenses following the first 100 days of availability. The fact that after the first six months Vista is only up to 60 million items shipped is a possible indication that the adoption of the operating system is slowing down. And the fact that users can almost smell Vista SP1 could have something to do with it.