Windows Vista Bites the Dust - Windows XP Did It!

Windows Vista is underperforming. And in this context, Microsoft's latest operating system is no match for Windows XP. In fact, Vista and XP are not even in the same league together. This is the conclusion of a study yet to be released by the NPD Group comparing the two client platforms, and which is illustrative of the fact that, despite the five-year gap separating the Windows operating system releases, Windows Vista failed to outperform Windows XP. Microsoft has been continually applauding its own perspective over Vista vs. XP, and the company is painting an entirely different picture. But how much of Microsoft's vision over Vista and XP is reality and how much is bending the numbers in order to transform an unfavorable situation into a marketing tool? Pretty much, considering the NPD Group's reports.

In terms of the performance and sales figures of the two operating systems, Vista is seriously lagging behind XP, although the Redmond company has boasted that its latest Windows release is outselling the 2001 platform by no less than two to one. Well, the NPD Group looked at the actual sales of boxed copies of the two products. NPD analyst Chris Swenson revealed that Windows Vista is doing extremely poorly at retail outlets in the "Windows Vista Still Underperforming in U.S. Retail" report, as cited by CNET. But the fact of the matter is that sales of boxed Vista copies are trailing those of XP at a distance, considering the performances the two clients delivered in their respective first six months of general consumer availability.

Microsoft touted in excess of 60 million shipped licenses of Vista at the end of the operating system's first six months on the market. Still, "shipped" is by no means an equivalent of "sold" and in this regard, Vista retail sales are inferior to those of XP by no less than 59.7%. And the fact that standalone unit sales of Vista are down compared to XP reverberates over the financial aspect with a 41.5% revenue gap between the two platforms. In response to the report, while failing to provide comments over the final conclusions, Microsoft did emphasize the 60 million sold Vista copies as well as the fact that over 80% of Windows revenue is traditionally associated with licenses sold for the operating systems preloaded on OEM computers.

The latest usage metrics statistics have Windows Vista at no less than 6% of the operating system market, with Windows XP accounting for a share of 80% at the end of August 2007. If Vista continues on this uptake trend that is currently losing momentum, it's highly unlikely that the operating system will hit the 100 million shipped copies milestone by the end of December 2007. Still, with computer manufacturers pushing in excess of 230 million machines annually, and with Vista becoming the sole Windows platform available via OEM licenses in 2008, in combination with the first service pack in Q1 of the upcoming year, Microsoft could see the market performances improving.