Mac OS X Continues to Grow as Windows Vista Is Just a Disappointment

Apple's Mac OS X 1.04 Tiger operating system is on an ascendant trend together with the Cupertino-based company's Mac computers, as Windows Vista is just a disappointment, considering the perspective of Gianfranco Lanci, President of Acer, the fourth largest computer manufacturer in the world. Microsoft itself announced strong sales of both Windows Vista and the Office 2007 System as an integer part of the $51.12 billion revenue for FY07, $13.37 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2007, but the Redmond company's operating system did nothing to impact the uptake of Mac OS X. Apple managed a revenue of $5.41 billion for the quarter.

Available for the general public since January 2007, Windows Vista out-performed its predecessor, Windows XP in terms of sales, but failed to convert Mac users to the PC. This is even more evident in the continuous adoption of Tiger, Apple's now two-year-old operating system, launched back in 2005. The fifth major release of Mac OS X is still going strong according to the Mac sales for the quarter ended on June 30.

Apple announced that it shipped no less than 1,764,000 Macintosh computers worldwide, with international sales contributing with over 40% to the company's revenue. By comparison, in the first quarter of 2007, Apple informed that it had sold 1,517,000 Mac machines. In this context, it is evident that despite the company having postponed Tiger's successor, Leopard, for October 2007 over the iPhone, Mac adoption was not impacted, and it is in fact accelerating.

"We're thrilled to report the highest June quarter revenue and profit in Apple's history, along with the highest quarterly Mac sales ever," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iPhone is off to a great start -- we hope to sell our one- millionth iPhone by the end of its first full quarter of sales -- and our new product pipeline is very strong."

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates revealed in mid June that Windows Vista sold approximately 40 million licenses in the first 100 days on the market. Still, judging by the growing installed base of Mac OS X Tiger, it is clear that Vista is not eroding Apple's share but Windows XP's. Although Microsoft also applauded the customer acceptance of Vista as one of the main catalysts of revenue growth for the past quarter, the company failed to deliver further statistics related to the sales associated with the operating system.