Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is selling seven copies of the Windows 7 every second; the company has already sold 150 million Windows 7 licenses since the debut of the resurgent operating system last October. "Windows 7," wrote Brandon LeBlanc in a mid-week blog post, "is the fastest selling operating system in history."  LeBlanc is the communications manager on the Windows Client Team.  Indeed, sales of Windows 7 are currently on track to surpass 300 million licenses by the end of this year.

The popularity of Windows 7 is a far cry from the struggles faced by the embattled Windows Vista, in which Microsoft overpromised and then under delivered by a wide margin. Even compared to the Windows XP OS it was supposed to replace, Vista was considered to be slow and memory hogging.

While managers were understandably cautious over Windows 7 initially, it has quickly become widespread knowledge that Windows 7 is far better than its predecessors. 

This can be evidenced by the corporations who are now flocking to upgrade to Windows 7, in stark contrast to the previous feet dragging over Vista. On top of this, many businesses who had earlier deferred their Vista upgrade are also upgrading from Windows XP as support for it winds down. In fact, LeBlanc noted that about 75 percent of enterprises are looking at migrating to Windows 7, a figure that he calls "amazing."

In the meantime, Microsoft will also be releasing the Service Pack 1 (SP1) of Windows 7 in July, which is slightly earlier than expected. While there has never been a fixed time table in that sense, Microsoft "traditionally" releases the first service pack within a year after the operating system is released.

For more on this story:
- check out the article at InformationWeek
- check out the article at CRN

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