Back in November 2006, and then in January 2007, Microsoft made available a variety of Windows Vista flavors designed to make Windows XP nothing short of expired. Outside of the Starter edition, tailorfitted as a replacement for Windows XP Starter, Windows Vista was launched in no less than five SKUs: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate, with just Enterprise reserved for Microsoft's Software Assurance customers via volume licensing. The remaining editions are up for grabs, for the general public since January 30, 2007. And yet, Vista sales are lagging behind those of XP. "Since May 2007, Vista Business PC sales have not continued to grow as would have been expected, leaving XP professional appearing still to be the business operating system of choice", said a representative from Context.

Market research company Context released statistics for the European market, with a focus on UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, indicating that Vista still has a long way to go before positioning itself as an equivalent of XP, in terms of sales performances. According to statistics from Context, computers pre-installed with Windows Vista Business manage to grab only 13% of all the sales volume of Europe's top IT distributors in September. But there is also more bad news for Vista Business. Not only is this Vista SKU selling poorly compared to Windows XP Professional, but it has also dropped from a sale share of 17% in August.

"The only flavor of Vista that is showing significant growth is Vista Home Premium", commented the representative from Context. "Ever since Vista's launch earlier in the year, the sales emphasis has been on consumer PCs with the Home Premium and Home Basic editions, with the corresponding disappearance of Windows XP Home and XP Media Center Edition."

By comparison, Windows XP Professional is run by over 27% of all PCs sold in Europe the past month. XP Professional is also down 4% from August. But while XP should theoretically be replaced by Vista Business, the fact of the matter is that it is still selling double than Microsoft's latest operating system. "In January 2007, prior to the Vista launch, Windows XP Home and Media Center equipped PCs sold by leading [European] distributors accounted for 29% of unit sales, while XP Professional was at 45%. By May of this year, XP Home and Media Center PCs had dropped to 9% of distributor sales, with Vista Basic and Home Premium combined at 36%, and XP Professional at 28%", Context reported.