2 ms·

"However, with an estimated 330 million internet users as of January 2009, it has been announced that Vista usage had surpassed Microsoft’s pre-launch two-year-

"However, with an estimated 330 million internet users as of January 2009, it has been announced that Vista usage had surpassed Microsoft’s pre-launch two-year-out expectations of achieving 200 million users.". The question isn't why hasn't Vista sold well, it's why do people think it hasn't sold well?

catzaa 17y ago
I personally think that Vista do well because it is bundled with PCs and laptops (no other reason). If Vista competed with XP I doubt that it would will. A lot of lay people have problems with Vista. Stupid things such as the box that comes up if you want to install anything and speed. People also got used to XP. IMHO I don't think that a lot of people upgraded XP to Vista. Operating systems have become a commodity in a large part.
raganwald 17y ago
How many of those numbers are new PC sales and how many are actual upgrades?
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  No idea. It occurred to me after I posted that the question might be "why were Microsoft's expectations so low".
- josefresco 17y ago
  Does that even matter? People always point to how many new OS purchases were via new machine buys but hasn't that always been the case? And even if it weren't does it matter how the OS gets on the machine? What's the distribution among Mac users, is the upgrade rate higher?
  - raganwald 17y ago
    I think it matters because the OP's thesis is that XP is "good enough" and that Vista's competition is XP, not OS X. If Microsoft allows its HW sluts^H^H^H^H partners to offer a choice between XP and Vista with new machines, Vista sales reflect people choosing Vista. But if Microsoft doesn't allow their partners to sell new machines with XP, the sales numbers appear high but those number don't reflect anything except a large number of people that would have bought XP any ways. In fact, the numbers are crazy-bad with new machines, because some vendors insisted on the right to sell XP, and Microsoft gave them the right to downgrade Vista machines to XP. So even if a large corporate customer buys 1,000 systems with XP on them, Microsoft records it as 1,000 Vista sales! I'm interested in sales reflecting choice, but it is not clear to me how Microsoft's accounting practices help us understand that at all.

catzaa 17y ago

I personally think that Vista do well because it is bundled with PCs and laptops (no other reason). If Vista competed with XP I doubt that it would will. A lot of lay people have problems with Vista. Stupid things such as the box that comes up if you want to install anything and speed. People also got used to XP. IMHO I don't think that a lot of people upgraded XP to Vista. Operating systems have become a commodity in a large part.

raganwald 17y ago

How many of those numbers are new PC sales and how many are actual upgrades?

mattmaroon 17y ago
No idea. It occurred to me after I posted that the question might be "why were Microsoft's expectations so low".
josefresco 17y ago
Does that even matter? People always point to how many new OS purchases were via new machine buys but hasn't that always been the case? And even if it weren't does it matter how the OS gets on the machine? What's the distribution among Mac users, is the upgrade rate higher?
- raganwald 17y ago
  I think it matters because the OP's thesis is that XP is "good enough" and that Vista's competition is XP, not OS X. If Microsoft allows its HW sluts^H^H^H^H partners to offer a choice between XP and Vista with new machines, Vista sales reflect people choosing Vista. But if Microsoft doesn't allow their partners to sell new machines with XP, the sales numbers appear high but those number don't reflect anything except a large number of people that would have bought XP any ways. In fact, the numbers are crazy-bad with new machines, because some vendors insisted on the right to sell XP, and Microsoft gave them the right to downgrade Vista machines to XP. So even if a large corporate customer buys 1,000 systems with XP on them, Microsoft records it as 1,000 Vista sales! I'm interested in sales reflecting choice, but it is not clear to me how Microsoft's accounting practices help us understand that at all.