Ballmer: New Windows 7 Form Factors for the Holiday Season and 2011

While just a few days ago, soon to be ex-Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie was predicting the death of the PC, at the Professional Developers Conference 2010 (PDC2010) in Redmond, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer revealed that the personal computer continues to be the key focus point for the company.

Of course, the software giant is looking at the PC as inherently connected to its Windows operating system, since well over 90% of the world’s computers are running the platform.

And Windows 7 has had a tremendous first year on the market, jumping to the position of second most used OS in the world, easily surpassing Windows Vista.

“At Microsoft, this kind of all starts with Windows. Windows PCs are our most popular smart devices,” Ballmer stated.

“In just the last 12 months, the last 12 months, the world has bought approximately 350 million new personal computers and we've sold 240 million new Windows 7 licenses in just the last year -- 240 million.”

In addition to selling like hot cake, Windows 7 is also keeping customers extremely happy. Ballmer revealed that the successor of Windows Vista has an impressive satisfaction rate of 94%.

Furthermore, Windows 7 has also convinced a lot of businesses to upgrade their old desktops. Over 88% of business users are migrating to the OS, the company underlined.

Ballmer promised that consumers will get to see a lot more in the PC space for this Christmas as well as for the coming year.

“The PC is the No. 1 smart device on the planet today, and there's lots of innovation going on. You'll see a range of new form factors for this holiday season, after this holiday season, and throughout next year in the Windows personal computers, if you will,” he said.

“Netbooks, tablets -- you'll see people push. They'll build on the ink and touch support which is built into every copy of Windows 7.”

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate (RC) Build 7601.17105.100929-1730 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate (RC) Build 7601.17105.100929-1730 are available for download here.