Windows Crushes Linux and Tiger - 1 Billion Copies by 2008

Forget about Linux and Mac OS X... The various versions of the Windows operating system from Microsoft will account for an install base of no less than 1 billion by mid 2008, and in fact pass the milestone by the end of the coming year. The availability of Windows Vista brought with it suppositions that the new operating system from the Redmond company would - for various reasons - push people away from the Windows platform and drive the adoption of Linux and Mac OS X. With Vista closing in on its six months of availability, such scenarios have remained nothing more than far fetched predictions. And at the Financial Analyst Meeting 2007 on July 26, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, offered an entirely different perspective and forecast for the future of Windows.

While continuing to sell only Windows XP and Windows Vista by the end of 2007, and then just Vista in 2008, with XP available exclusively to System Builders come February 2008, and no longer via Direct OEM and Retail Licenses, Microsoft expects to top the 1 billion milestone for all the installed copies of Windows worldwide. The mark should be achieved by the end of June 2008.

"If you take a look over the last five years, a lot has gone very well from a shareholder perspective. We've doubled profit and nearly doubled revenue in a five-year timeframe. At least, I would say, I think that's quite an achievement given that we started at $8.9 billion of operating income, which is pretty high level. We had a chance to return over $100 billion in share buybacks, and in dividends to our shareholders. And the install base of Windows computers this coming 12 months will reach 1 billion. If you stop and just think about that, parse that for a second, by the end of our fiscal year '08, there will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles, which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept. I think it talks about the way the value has been driven from the Windows PC, and all of the applications from Microsoft to third parties that go with it," Ballmer revealed.

Currently, according to statistics from Market Share by Net Applications, Windows XP is credited with 81.94% of the operating system market, Windows Vista with 4.52%, Mac OS with 6% and Linux with just 0.71%.