Print - Vista Growth Surges as Corporate Adoption Kicks In

Last month, Microsoft announced that it had sold 85 million copies of Windows Vista, compared with just 45 million copies of Windows XP during the same time span in its initial release. This milestone is particularly impressive given the widespread negative articles one reads everywhere online about Vista, though most of that is anecdotal. But Microsoft says the reality of Vista is all upside and that Vista's growth is making a sudden surge.

The reason, Microsoft says, is that its biggest Windows customers, slow-moving corporations, are now starting to move to Vista. They're doing so as they always do, on their own schedules, but now that Vista has been in the market for most of a year, the sudden jump in sales is coming at an opportune time. Combined with holiday PC sales, this surge could make a huge quarter for the supposedly flailing OS. That's good news, unless of course you were playing the Chicken Little role in this invented tech farce.

"We feel like we are starting to hit our stride not only in demand, but in deployment in business," Microsoft president Kevin Johnson told Reuters this week. Growth in the Windows business has exceeded 20 percent each quarter since Vista first shipped, and the company is on track for 25 percent annual growth. Most impressive, perhaps, is that Microsoft makes 75 cents of profit on each dollar in Windows sales.

Part of the reason for Vista's huge financial success is that consumers are turning to high-end versions of the system in record numbers. In the previous quarter, over 75 percent of all Vista sales were for the high-end (and higher cost) Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate versions. (With XP, 59 percent of customers opted for premium versions of the OS.) While the software giant's decision to bifurcate Vista into more product versions than any previous Windows version was widely criticized, it's clearly been successful doing so. The company credits its progress on "educating consumers" about the benefits of the higher-end versions.

After the holiday sales season is over, Johnson expects another Vista sales boost, this time from the corporate market, when Microsoft ships the system's first service pack in the first quarter of 2008. Many of Microsoft's business customers wait for the first service pack before deploying a new Windows version. Microsoft's unearned revenue in the Windows business jumped 27 percent in the previous quarter, indicating that its customers were getting ready to make the jump to Vista: Unearned revenue is revenue that has been signed but not yet recognized because the product has yet to be delivered to and deployed by customers. That's all from upcoming Vista deployments, Johnson says.

Watch out for the anti-MS crowd...they'll be out in force on this one. But, seriously - the company that I work for has been testing Vista since the Beta program, and the release version since it came out. I've talked to the architects and testers that are involved and there really are no major hurdles to rolling out. They will wait until Q1 2008, though. --tayme

I would not assume that people buying Vista on a new pc or employees having it foisted on them by their company are choosing to move to Windows Vista. M$ will always have that market on any new version of Windows. Also, why can't we have a version of Windows that does not cost an arm and a leg, runs in the background andmerely acts as the interface between your pc and your programs. Why has the operating system got to be in your face all the time with non-sensical schemes such as Windows Genuine Dis-advantage? Why do Micro$oft and Bill Gates have to go after every last cent when they already have more money than they know what to do with?

@bonchsucks - exactly. And its from a new user, too. Amazing!!! @pesmith - Nice use of a dollar sign as an S. Shows that you fir into the group described in my first post. --tayme

Microsoft selling to businesses? Who would've thunk it? Regardless of a persons preference on Vista this was going to happen so the anti-MS crowd can zip it until a certain fruit named company learns a thing or two about the business world of IT.

"We feel like we are starting to hit our stride not only in demand, but in deployment in business," did anybody catch the little point of news that BDD 2007 is now called "Microsoft Deployment" and has turned into v4 beta just recently? XP

....wait, my bad. it's RC1. you can find it here: www.microsoft.com/deployment (very cool stuff for IT admins) XP

"But Microsoft says the reality of Vista is all upside and that Vista's growth is making a sudden surge." Well what else would they say? Frankly, that paragraph sounds like it came from the Bush War Room. Vista's doing fine. Good for Microsoft. "Most impressive, perhaps, is that Microsoft makes 75 cents of profit on each dollar in Windows sales." I'm expecting "WaeThorn" to be consistent and complain that these are unreasonably high margins. "The company credits its progress on "educating consumers" about the benefits of the higher-end versions." Such as higher margins for Microsoft, and more money spent on systems built by their partners! ;-)

@"lotsamystuff" - Nice try at trying to hide your true feelings behind the statement - "Vista's doing fine. Good for Microsoft." Of course, we all know that you have an Apple tatooed in a rarely seen area of your body! ;-) <-- wink, wink; nudge, nudge; say no more! --tayme

@Reflections: "Regardless of a persons preference on Vista this was going to happen so the anti-MS crowd can zip it until a certain fruit named company learns a thing or two about the business world of IT." Never thought I'd say this, but I agree with you 100%.

"tayme": My "feelings" have nothing to do with this. Of course Vista's going to be successful, even more so when the compatibility kinks are worked out. It's inevitable, especially when you define success as selling more units in a market that has grown substantially since the introduction of XP.

Oh - I'll bite. It's the holiday season, so here's your gift...... lotsa- What would you define success as?

Hmm, lotsa, what is success supposed to be? Selling less? Of course, this is just a snarky way of saying that the sales volume isn't really as significant since the market has increased.

@"lotsamystuff" - "when you define success as selling more units in a market that has grown substantially since the introduction of XP." Of course I would measure that as success. If the market has grown substantially, and other OS's have gained market share, wouldn't that mean that Vista is outselling XP by an even wider margin? But then, you missed my point. I was talking about your snarky comments surrounding the statement in question. It's your way of coming back later and saying things like "Have you not been reading what I write?" and "I use MS products because I want to.". Just like Hillary, you've told so many stories, even you don't know which is true now. --tayme

tayme: with every passing comment, you are proving that MS users can equal Mac users when it comes to being d!cks. Sincerely, lotsas Peanut Gallery.

@RunTimeError - If you've been reading long, you know that I am not an "MS user". I use many different OS's on a daily basis - including OS X. I am just sick and tired of the likes of "lotsamystuff" bashing everything that MS and Bill Gates does - even when they try to hide behind the occasional "nice job" statement, as "lotsa" did here. I also do not condone Waethorn's "anything except MS sux" rants...and have pointed it out numerous times. With that said, at least Waethorn knows a thing or 2 about PCs. "lotsamystuff" is admittedly a marketing professional and deniably a Mac enthusiast. --tayme

No doubt this topic discussion is done with, but I will post anyway. I rolled out 250 vista machines this summer, and except for the change in Sysprep, I have had no problems. My users are happy, Vista has prevented a virus spread, and management on my end has been easier. There have been a few compatibility problems with programs, but these are all ancient programs that should be updated anyways. Consider me a case study for the success of Vista.

"I also do not condone Waethorn's "anything except MS sux" rants" hey, anything to feed losta more of his bad medicine back at him.... ;) XP

That's great for Microsoft, as long as Vista is being sold and they're raking in the money for the high end versions. (The low end affordable versions are too hobbled to do anything useful) Who cares about the widespread negative reviews. (Paul simply dismisses these reviews as being anecdotal) I'm afraid Paul, a lot of these negative reviews have been written by long time Windows users after using Vista entensively and when the negativity becomes widespread, it can't simply be dismissed as unreliable, uninformed opinion. In fact I would say that the positive reviews(which are far less common) are anecdotal.

"I'm afraid Paul, a lot of these negative reviews have been written by long time Windows users after using Vista entensively" ya, you know, cuz Pogue falls under that category. XP

"it can't simply be dismissed as unreliable, uninformed opinion. In fact I would say that the positive reviews(which are far less common) are anecdotal." Not wanting to point out the obvious, but of course any negative review can be easily dismissed. The product is out, it has been out for a year, no person needs a "review" to tell them anything they can't discover for themselves. It's not the code just went RTM or they are taking the wraps off something secret. I've been an Ultimate x64 user since Beta 2 on my primary computer. I've had no business issues to speak of. My only negative issues had been something game related, which a hotfix and driver updates took care of (this isn't exactly surprising given that game developers are some of the lowest paid coders I've seen). Outside of my personal experience, my general corporate experience matches "de Silentio" above. Deployment was easy. There were some initial issues with drive mapping, login scripts, and some general management changes, but solutions were documented within a couple months of general release. At this point, I tend to think people with problems are using some antiquated hardware without proper driver support, or they haven't applied those compatibility packs (which remedied all the issues I've seen on any machine thus far).

"ya, you know, cuz Pogue falls under that category." Considering that Pogue has two best-selling books on Vista, two on XP and one each on Windows 2000 Pro and Windows Millenium Edition (cough, cough), I'd say that, yeah, he's very qualified as a "long time Windows user" and is more than justified in making such judgements, "Waethorn".