RSSEarly sales figures for Windows 7 nicely high, but do we know why?
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 6, 2009, 11:32 AM
The initial sales figures for Microsoft Windows 7 after its worldwide launch on October 22 are still being tabulated, but the early estimates sound very promising: According to industry analysis firm NPD, unit sales for Windows 7 software SKUs in the US were 234% higher -- better than triple -- the unit sales for Vista's launch, and US revenue from Win7 software sales was up 82% over Vista's launch.
But as Vista veterans will recall, that launch was botched somewhat, first by a costly delay, then by a decision to launch the product twice (first to businesses in October 2006, then to consumers in January 2007), and then by a lack of participation from partners. And there were still more reasons the Vista launch fizzled, one of which, believe it or not, included the scheduling of the launch on a Tuesday.
Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows XP all launched on Thursdays, to moderate success or higher; and Windows 7 launched on a Thursday. You would think that since NPD's tabulation of sales figures runs between Sundays and Saturdays, the fact that the initial sales figures only reflect the first three days (plus all those pre-sales) of Windows 7 versus the first five days of Vista, would be even more impressive. Yet it's those pre-sales that may tell the real tale here, according to NPD vice president of industry analysis Stephen Baker, who credited a better-run pre-sale event from Microsoft and its retail partners as contributing to the more successful launch this time around. If you'll recall, the hype over Vista had fizzled long before January.
The top three selling SKUs in the three-day window were all upgrades: for Home Premium, followed by Professional (from Vista Business), and the Home Premium Family Pack. We don't know specific unit sales numbers, but can we draw any conclusions yet about who is doing the upgrading and why? For instance, are they XP users, or are those folks more likely to purchase new PCs with Win7 pre-installed (whose sales are not included in these NPD figures, but whose early estimates also appear positive)?
"Questions like that on hardware are hard to answer after three days of sales," Stephen Baker told Betanews this morning. "Some portion of the first three days of sales is just pent-up demand, driven by lack of product to sell in the first ten days. So in that respect, I am not sure what the initial motivators are."
In his blog post on launch day, Baker credited stores like Best Buy with their willingness this time around to cooperate with Microsoft, especially with little things like displaying Win7-based PCs -- not Vista -- during early October even before Win7 or the PCs with Win7 were available. Seeing those systems, and some of their new form factors, might contribute to some of that pent-up demand Baker told us about.
"In general, though, consumers rarely buy PCs for 'new' features," Baker told us, letting the air out of that balloon. "As a tool and a home communication necessity, PCs are most often bought on need. The latest form factor isn't or design isn't what motivates consumers to buy, it is what gets them to buy at the point-of-sale in the store. But getting them to make a decision to buy is based on need, price, and promotion."
We definitely saw the promotion part of that solution as early as August, with a respectable and, for once, not insulting advertising campaign that blanketed all media, including television. But this time around, OEMs were participating in that promotion as well, and were in sync with Microsoft's timetable, publishing early notices of markdown deals, and drumming October 22 into consumers' heads.
But that doesn't cover the need factor; and we wondered, how much did Vista contribute to that need. Since, after all, the top three selling SKUs were all upgrades, were folks really willing to dump Vista?
No, according to NPD's Baker: He believes that the factor that publishers like Betanews had been calling the "Vista perception problem" are not as pervasive as we make it out to be, especially in the consumer space. More importantly than how we may dramatize things, consumers were simply more motivated by the "refresh" aspect of the new system, says Baker.
"I would suspect that most of it is new look-and-feel, and a PC refresh without the cost," he told Betanews. "Bloggers may dislike Vista, but the vast majority of consumers really don't mind it."
Microsoft has always been the best, the first and the only real choice.
Most users don't have the slightest idea of computing and when they need a machine they buy whatever is offered at a good price. Sales chains and hardware providers sell them Windows XP, or Vista, or Windows 7, or Windows XXX..., or whatever they offer.
It is they and not people who make the choice for you and buy to Microsoft what pays the most, and also stop selling spare parts or drivers to force you to buy a new machine. And Microsoft needs them.
Don't ask about user's opinion: what really counts are the benefits of the hardware factories and the commercial chains. Microsoft doesn't need to convince users: their business is done with the hardware and driver providers.
This way current stats only reflect how good has been the Microsoft sales policy.
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|like i mentioned before win7 takes 4 min to boot up in vwware, xp 4 seconds.
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|The problem is most, if not all “review” websites, are not actual reviews at all. They’ll get a piece of hardware, or in this case, software, run in for 2 or 3 days, and call it a review. The more honest title should be “first look”. There’s no real way to test either in that short amount of time. So, why do it? Because they have to. It’s about the $$. The need to be “first to publish” directly effects advertising revenues in an extremely competitive market (the net)
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|yes, but the reviews usually are backed up with some kind of benchmark numbers, as was the case with the original reviews with Vista, only many intendant studies, and casual benchmarks the average consumer was doing could not replicate the same results as these big review companies.
for the record though, i am not saying all reviews websites were bias,
in fact, the point i was trying to make was more to do with how the review sites were going back completely on what they has said originally, with out any explanation what so ever,
which unfortunately leads most intelligent people to think that those review sites were influenced in some way, which says a lot for there future standard of integrity,
if one makes a mistake, then one should apologize and explain how the mistake occured,
did some searching, and already I'm starting to see some review sites saying that Windows 7 is just as fast as windows XP, yet some small review sites are saying that windows 7 is on par with Windows XP in a few areas, but over all Windows XP is still faster,
i can't believe how it's happening again,
for the record, i have determined the same as what those independent benchmarks has shown,
over all windows XP is faster overall, but in a few areas (IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller too name one) is faster then Windows XP, however surprisingly Windows 7 has had a significant development overhaul in the graphics department (that's twice now including Vista) and yet Windows XP graphics system is far superior in performance over windows 7,
i guess we will see as time goes on as what will the final (majority) vote will be on windows 7,
i just hope we don't get that crap from people concerning windows 7 being a new operating system (it's not, it's the final polished version of Vista). so we should not have to wait for updates,
in fact windows 7 has a significant advantage over windows XP now, Vista (3 years development) Win7 (3 years development), XP only had 4 years development,
one thing that will make XP users upgrade though, DirectX 11,
DirectX 11 is going to be a big revolutionary improvement,
i just wished Windows 7 could utilize the graphics system as effective as windows XP could,
i guess the nice desktop does come at a high cost, something i can not ignore,
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|Win7 Fusion 3.0 question-
I'll admit I'm no expert, what I have noticed after a week of running Windows 7 and XP side by side on Fusion3 is that XP takes 4 seconds to boot up, windows7 takes 4 min.!!!!
seriously, can anyone tell me if they are experiencing this with VMware??
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|for a lot of people, windows 7 is very much like the controversial debate most of the world had when "Windows 98 Second Edition" was released,
Win98 SE fixed all the flaws and downfalls of the original release of "Win98"
Here we are again, with Windows 7 fixing all the flaws and downfalls of Vista,
But one can't blame or judge a company when they take consumers for granted,
after all, we're not children, we have no excuse for being gullible, the reviews of Vista in general was in fact the cause why consumers were fooled into thinking Vista was a great product, worthy of replacing windows XP, even though independent reviews slated Vista from word go, this wasn't the case with all the big review sites out there, as on first release of Vista many big review companies released reviews saying on record that Vista was a great product and a faster performer than Windows XP,
however surprisingly 15 months later after Vista's release, those same review websites were suddenly saying the opposite, and was actually now agreeing with the independent reviews that were done originally, in my opinion it was these review sites that were directly responsible for Vista's massive success in the consumer market , because unlike businesses and professional technicians alike, consumers were dooped into thinking that Vista was indeed a better product then windows XP, the fact is even though small independent review websites were saying Vista was a disaster from the get go, most consumers are going to listen to the big Review companies, as they are the PR Spin doctors, and the kind of people consumers listen too.
Fortunately on a whole, Vista was a flop, and did not sell nowhere near as many as MS would have like, as was the case with Windows 98 (SE). Because this time, businesses and sceptical people alike did not listen to the big review sites spinning the PR crap, but rather listened to the smaller review sites, the sites that have no fear of telling the truth, and damn the consequences attitude, big review websites do not want to be targeted by companies like Microsoft, where as smaller individual couldn’t be arsed either way.
Fortunately people in general did not take much stock in these big review companies this time round, so as a whole MS was unable to sway as many people as they had done previously with the winodws 98 (SE) situations.
But under no circumstances can MS be responsible for people being stupid, or negligent in their decision making,
As long as no laws are being broken, then if consumers buy the product, without doing the relevant research before hand, than that fault lays at the feet of the consumer, not the company.
it's surprising how many times consumers will assume that the newest product is always the best product, Microsoft will happily (as any company around the world would) sell their product on the basis of that assumption, it is not the responsibility of any company to correct their customers in their way of thinking.
No company on this earth is entirely for the people.
We are all responsible for our decisions, but its human nature to complain after the fact because what we thought a product would be is not,
I feel that all those websites that were saying Vista was great on 1st reviews, then had the cheek, the audacity to change their entire views 15 months later after the fact, in my opinion they’re the ones who should be in the firing lines, they’re the ones who were directly responsible for spreading such false views of a product when reviewing it originally to the general unknowing public,
And yet know one has complained about their atrocities,
How can a review site release a review of a product, but then do a 180 turn on their stance of view 15 months later, and get away with it.
I’m shocked that a lot of people were mislead by false and inaccurate reviews on the original release of Vista, and yet are taken their frustration out on Microsoft.
What a bizarre world we live in at the moment, how sites create reviews of products, then change their mind, and yet are blameless by their readers?
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|Windows 7 surpasses Snow Leopard in under two weeks: http://www.neowin.net/ne...pard-in-under-two-weeks
now that's cool!
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|Duh? Look at the market base. Billions of PCs vs. thousands of Macs. Even if Apple had a 100% adoption rate for the upgrade, there is no way they would possibly be able to outsell Win7.
Such a comparison is brain-dead, to put it mildly....the two are operating on completely different market-levels.
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|I'm sorry, I was too busy being excited that the Honda Civic outsold vans with handicapped ramps to read all this, can someone catch me up?
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|I currently have 4 Vista machines, 3 notebooks and 1 tower. To this day, not one issue with hardware, software, etc... and I transfer all kinds of different configuration files to various hardware through USB and have never had one single issue.
I know most of the planet uses thier computers only for web surfing, sending emails and printing the occasional recipe. I love how the Vista haters on here have never even owned a computer with it installed. They just listen to thier know it all a****** brother and join the "Vista sucks" bandwagon for no other reason than to complain about something.
Windows 7 is still Vista people, just polished and refined a bit. But now it has a new name and a shiny veneer and everyone loves it. I know I sound like an elitist scumbag when I say that almost everybody (like 97% of the population) has no clue about anything. These are the same saps that get talked into buying a $114 HDMI cable, a special $45 plasma cleaning rag, and a $300 extended warranty from Best Buy.
These are also the same morons who buy Dell computers. Yes, I want a Frankensteined computer made with parts from whoever happened to be the cheapest bidder this week.
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|Do the sales totals include all those copies ordere last summer during MS's give away (Home Premium upgrade was $50), which were officially processed and paid for toward the end of October?
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|This sounds like a bit of historic revisionism.
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|Do we know why? What a stupid title. Because it is an amazing OS that for some reason wasn't attacked by the media the way every other OS MS has released in the past has.
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|Where are the Apple Campers at with their inevitable "these numbers are doctored" quips?
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|Actually, I'm wondering where the "Steve Jobs: Fortune's 'CEO of the Decade'" article is.
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|First, by allowing tech minded people (and not just professionals) try Win 7 beta versions, Microsoft got out the word that people actually liked it. I agree, people do generally upgrade their computers by necessity. First my son loaded it onto a bran-new high end computer he built himself, (cost effective at free). The second user was my husband who had a nice computer loaded with XP, because of what he had heard about Vista. He put on Win 7 because his computer had slowed to almost a standstill. He now loves Win 7. When our family computer got a virus it wasn't supposed to be able to get, it seemed to do something to the hard drive. When it completely died, instead of putting back Vista on it, we just put on Win 7. Lastly, once I knew the parental controls were so much better in Win 7, I loaded it on to my younger son's computer. When they had the "deals" on upgrades, I bought four copies. So yes, we are mainly upgrading from XP to Win 7, but also upgraded from Vista. And Microsoft offering deals for once did have an impact on how many copies we bought. We are a six computer family.
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|Excuses, excuses.Vista was crap, plain an simple.
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|Vista was indeed crap out the door for many reasons. It wasn't ready, people tried to run it only old hardware, the biggest issues were drivers -- why didn't OEMs have drivers ready?
Fast forward to SP1 and Vista actually became good to very good. Why? Well, see above, the code was fixed in LOTS of places (thank goodness for free updates), Nvidia and other OEMs got the drivers right, and people had new computers.
I have 7 on a couple of machines, but this one is actually running Vista. It's quite good and there's no pressing need to jump to 7 here.
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|Vista, after SP1 and some satisfactory drivers, isn't bad at all. It's not great and it's certainly not what they were promoting in 2002, but it does work. It just so happens that Windows 7 is the complete version and many people recognise that and are buying.
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|Irrelevant, frankwick. I run Win 7 on hardware (Netbook at 1.6 GHz with 1 GB RAM) that was much less than what I had tried Vista on and it still runs better than Vista. M$ changed things too often for OEMs to keep up. As I had said above; Excuses excuses. Blaming the hardware is lame then and it still is. The only piece of hardware I had any real problems with under Vista was my brand new VX-3000 Lifecam from M$. The rest of my problems was with the OS itself and I had over 25 years experience with computers. The majority of the fault here was M$'.
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|True, bousozoku, but by then it was too late to save Vista its fate.
Windows 7 isn't Vista SE. There is just too much difference between the two.
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|Selling Vista twice? Nope, it was released in the same manner as XP before it and 7 after it - RTM and offered to businesses and OEMs, then three months later it's sold to consumers.
This site is turning into The Sun and using a ton of weasel words and weasel sentences in order to discredit something specific.
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|my primary home system runs Vista, my on the go PC now runs Windows 7 Ultimate. my home PC is just the way i like things setup right now, never errors out, i could 'upgrade' but meh, i'll start fresh when the time comes
for now i'll enjoy Windows 7 on the go, at work, vacation, etc ;) regardless, i happily paid for 7 Ultimate, zero regrets
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|It really is nice to hear some positive feedback regarding Windows 7. We have been marketing Windows 7 intensely. We are actually attempting to drive web traffic to our site at D L SERVICES INC
Since we don’t get paid for all the marketing unless the sale is made thru our site.
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|GG, man....Site run off your dell laptop? Slower than molasses.
People hate waiting. Getting a decent host will do wonders for ya..
Example: I didn't even wait for the site to finish loading. If you had something there I would have been interested, the (lack of) speed just cost you a sale. :)
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|Perhaps you should have used Chrome instead. I can't quite remember where I read it, but I've heard it's much faster than everything else. ;)
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|Shaddup, you. :p
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|Bah... you're no fun!
Big ol' meanie. ;)
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|"Big ol' meanie."
Wait, you're just now figuring that out?
Geez...I bet you just figured out how to set the time on your VCR, too.
*wicked grin*
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|Nah, never bothered. I left it that way on purpose.
Oh look... It's lunchtime again! =)
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|Baker will not be ridiculed for pointing out a contrary opinion to the vast majority of computer nerds and IT people who hate Vista. For the average consumer, Vista worked perfectly fine for them to read e-mails, surf the web, type an occasional document, etc.
For those who are not the average consumer, they will always find something to complain about with any version of Windows...
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|I couldnt agree more. Infact i dont think i have every came across any software that i am totaly happy with, there is always somthing that bugs me atleast a little bit.
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|After SP1 that is......
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|True, but some things ARE worse than others.
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|Are there *really* very many "average consumers" out there anymore that only use a computer to surf the web and read e-mail? Even my 80+ year old, non-computer nerd or IT pro, grandparents use their computers to manage photo albums, run genealogy software, manage their finances, manage medications, etc...
And yes, they hated Vista. It was always popping up things they had to read which didn't make sense to them when they read them, it only made them feel unsafe because they were always warnings of some kind of how opening anything could lead to horrible consequences. It made computing scary. Which is how I believe the "Average consumer" thinks. They want something they can use to manage photos and finances that isn't always interrupting them to tell them how everything they click is unsafe.
The idea that people "really don't mind" Vista but are are suddenly running out and buying an OS on the retail market to replace it for a "refresh" makes no sense. People that "don't really mind" their OS do not "refresh" their OS either. Sales of PCs with Win 7 preinstalled wouldn't indicate a Vista Perception Problem. But the spike in sales of retail OS sales, especially upgrades, shows that there's either been a major spike in the number of computer nerds and IT pros out there or, the more likely explanation, is that there's a lot of people out there who do mind Vista enough to want to pay to replace it separate from their PC.
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|Sorry, manage photos, manage finances, etc... They are your average consumer out there. Again, what the average consumer does is always changing, but there is a clear distinction between average and the computer nerd sector.
Your grandparents may not like it, but my parents have been using Vista for over a year now and have never complained about Vista to the point that my dad didn't understand the fuss about Vista. Most of the fuss about Vista was created by the "computer geeks", not your average consumer. Out of everyone I know who used Vista, the only complaints came from the computer geeks. Most of the complains were directed at the PC manufacturers for the junk ware, the hardware failures, etc... not Vista... A lot of Vista problems can be traced to the hardware manufacturers and other software companies for not updating their drivers and software (i.e. no 64 bit flash yet...)
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|Lame, ece.
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|"Are there *really* very many "average consumers" out there anymore that only use a computer to surf the web and read e-mail?"
Yes, my girlfriend... When I bought this machine with Win7 on it on 10/22, she looked at it for about 2 minutes before saying "Hey, did the computer change?". Mind you, we had a Dell Inspirion 1305 running XP... "did the computer change?"... still makes me laugh thinking about it. lol
She does 3 things on here... email, web, and Big Fish Games... so, yes, those types still exist.
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|My wife is another. She actually will not LET ME upgrade her to Windows 7 because Vista works just fine. My dad is another one. He uses his computer for work and finds vista works just fine for him as well.
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|@ FixXeR: I won`t install Win 7 on my computer either. Vista works great, I`ll just wait it out until all the bugs in 7 have been fixed. But oh, wait, by then there`s probably a new version coming out.
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