Sales of Windows 7 exceed that of Vista

The results are in: Microsoft sold significantly more copies of the Windows 7 operating system in the week after its official launch than was achieved by Windows Vista in 2007. To be precise, Microsoft achieved sales that were 234 percent higher for Windows 7 than Vista.

While this must be good news to Microsoft executives, it seems that the company's initial expectations could have been even higher. Indeed, analyst with the NPD Group, Stephen Baker noted that while this was good, he "wouldn't call it great."

A tough economy together with reluctance on the part of retailers to give up on Windows XP or Vista resulted in poorer than expected performance, says Baker. Despite outselling Windows Vista, Windows 7 has only brought about an 82 percent revenue increase over its predecessor so far. This was attributed partly to steep discounts that were dished out during the pre-sale period for Windows 7.

Of course, it'll be a while yet before Windows 7 even achieves parity in terms of market share with Windows Vista. At the moment, a separate report by Net Applications revealed that Windows 7 has three percent of the PC market as of the beginning of November. In contrast, Microsoft currently commands a hefty 92.52 percent of the entire market.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at eWeek
- check out this article at Computerworld

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