Sales of the operating system exploded after SP1

Jul 18, 2008 14:48 GMT  ·  By

Windows Vista might not be the top seller that Microsoft had forecast before the operating system hit the shelves at the end of January 2007, but the latest Windows client is by no means a failure. Quite the opposite, in fact; according to the Redmond giant, Vista has sold over 180 million licenses in its first year and a half on the market. On July 17, 2008 Microsoft posted its financial results for the 2008 fiscal year ended June 30, 2008. A consistent slice of the total $60 billion revenue in the company's past fiscal year was brought in by the Windows Client division, specifically by Windows Vista.

The Windows Client division accounted for a revenue of $4,3 billion just in the fourth quarter of FY2008, up 15% from just $3.8 billion in the same quarter of the past year. As far as the whole of FY2008 is concerned, the revenue produced by sales of the Windows Client division are over $16,8 billion, a consistent increase (13%) over the approximately $15 billion of FY2007. In the last quarter of the 2008 fiscal year, Microsoft obtained a profit of Profit $3.23 billion from its sales of Windows.

Microsoft was little hesitant of indicating that Windows Vista sales were responsible for the high revenue of the Windows Client division. The bottom line is that the Redmond company is proving that there is strong demand for its latest version of the Windows client, and that the operating system is indeed selling, even with Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows 7. In May 2008, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that Vista had passed the 140 million sold licenses milestone, which means that sales of the operating system exploded to a high of 20 million units per month following the general availability of Service Pack 1.

At this point in time, Windows Vista is credited with a share of 16.14% of the operating system market, a figure which is consistent with an install base of just over 160 million Vistas. However, Microsoft is traditionally counting not the copies of the platform that were actually sold to customers, but all the licenses shipped into the channel, meaning also the Vista platforms that went to retail outlets and original equipment manufacturers, despite the company's claim that "Windows Vista (...) has sold over 180 million licenses since launch".