How Do 400 Million Windows 7 Licenses Compare Against Windows XP and Vista Histo

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hellwig

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[citation][nom]Infinity4011[/nom]Your statement shows how little you know about retail environments. Most retail stores only pay for books, magazines, movies, and games/software that they sell. Not that they get shipped to them. There are exceptions, but generally if a retailer like Wal-mart, Target, or Best Buy doesn't sell it, then the vendors, merchandisers, and sales representatives from the various distribution companies have to come and pick it back up and take it back. The final word is, the sale is only a sale once it is scanned at the register and removed from the retailer's inventory. This only applies to OS licenses sold to stores as retail box copies, however. Licenses packaged in with whatever garbage is on the shelf in the store are already sold, but those were sold to someone else.Also, you know very little about manufacturing. Companies do not buy massive amounts of something in order for it to sit in a warehouse waiting to be mated up with other components and a finished product built out of it. Nearly all factories only maintain enough inventory to build a certain amount of product over a certain length of time, and it doesn't make sense to order many hundreds of thousands of something only to wait for it to be mated up with other assembly materials.[/citation]

You're very condescending for someone who basically just quoted right back to me what I said. My point was, Microsoft says it shipped 400-million windows 7 licenses. That does NOT mean there are 400-million Windows 7 users out there. Many of those licenses (couple million at least), are sitting around on any number of retail shelves or warehouse stockrooms. Now, whether or not Microsoft got paid for them isn't even the point. The point I made was that Microsoft claims they shipped 400-million licenses(which may be right), but that doesn't mean there are 400-million Windows 7 users (or even installs).

Of course, maybe reading isn't your strong point, lets try some math (yeah, I'm being condescending too, surprise). If OEMs made 591million computers in 20 months, and half of those had Windows 7, they made almost 15-million windows computers a month. Now, if you buy ONLY 1-months worth of licenses, guess what, OEMs (collectively) are sitting on 15-million Windows 7 licenses. That's not speculation, that's math. Maybe they only buy a week in advance, that's still 3-million licenses. So, maybe you skipped math during all those manufacturing courses you must have taken. As for retail copies, go to Best Buy and do some counting, probably 20 boxes sitting on the shelf, and a couple-dozen display PCs (and maybe a couple dozen more in stock). With over 1,100 retail outlets around the world, thats 1,100 * (20 + 48) = 74,800 licenses of windows 7, collecting dust on Best Buy shelves. I don't care who paid for what, but Microsoft counts every one of those when it says it has shipped 400-million.

Same with record labels. They may ship 10-million copies of a CD, that's the number they report, doesn't matter if all 10-million get shipped right back and they never make a dime off them.

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]A) Shelves are restocked.B) Most of those boxes are EMPTY, you buy the software and the actual box is given to you afterwards (Costco / Frys, Sams, etc)[/citation]
What's your point? So the box is empty, they STILL have the damn license to sell you. You don't bring up an empty box, and they call Microsoft on the phone, and Microsoft sends an email with your license and they print it out in the back for you. They HAVE the license, it just might not literally be sitting on the shelf.
 

cobra5000

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[citation][nom]whysobluepandabear[/nom]NO it's not. I have over 360MB of free RAM - that's with XP running & Firefox (3 tabs). 1GB for web browsing, movie watching and pretty much anything that doesn't involve gaming is PERFECTLY fine. Then again I only have 31 processes running, but it's not my fault that I know what does and does not need to be running.[/citation]
Wow! Mr. 360 mb of free RAM, have you priced RAM these days? 360 mb, it is too laugh..
 

mcnaugha

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The guy who talked about a Windows 7 activation count being closer to the truth was bang on. It's not necessarily about OEM's bulk buying... the more important thing it doesn't account for is the fact that any license bought for a Microsoft product is always counted against the current release regardless of the user exercising downgrade rights. I can speak for a massive Enterprise that has yet to support Windows 7. All licenses we buy in say they are Windows 7, but we downgrade to XP. It is probably closer to the truth that about 300 million of those Windows 7 licenses were downgraded to XP as they were bought by large Enterprises. Just take a look at the web browser stats. They're about the only thing which give us a reality check on who's using what out there. I think Windows 7 is fantastic, but shifting Enterprising to new OS releases is a slow and painful task. Same goes for Office. They'll claim they've sold millions of Office 2007 and 2010 but the vast majority will have exercised downgrade rights. The fear of the new formats, etc. It's ridiculous but true.
 
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I was forced to pay the Micro$oft tax just to get the portable that I wanted, Ballmer and Crash got my cash but Windows 7 Deluxe home edition is wiped and replaced by openSUSE so I can say for sure that the figures are not right, shipped maybe but but not running.

Maybe one of these days we will be able to buy our computers without being forced to pay for shoddy, unwanted operating systems from M$. After all, it is unconstitutional, isn't it >>>
 

razor512

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Wanted to also add that it is hard to count the popularity of a OS when it is provided as a non option.

If every computer maker that sold a windows based PC, sold it with the AV2011 malware preinstalled, then based on microsofts reasoning, it will be the most popular windows application

For what most users do on their computer, windows xp can do everything they need. For a user uses their computer to surf the web (eg running firefox) and listens to music, what benefit do they get by "upgrading" to a OS that uses 10 times more resources, just to allow then to do the same exact thing they were doing before?

What microsoft needs to release to determine how many people are using it voluntarily, is to find out how many retail copies of windows 7 were activated (they do keep track of that)

For new computers sold in stores, generally the only option you have is the mac OS or windows 7

so for a windows user, they only have the choice of windows 7. (while systems can be specially ordered with linux, it is hard to find and most of those systems are outdated (mainly because the companies that sell them don't update their product line as often, or worst, since they are not a major brand, they will often be more expensive for the same hardware, making it a better deal to buy a PC with windows 7, then reformat and install linux)

If microsoft wants to see how popular windows 7 truly is, then they need to start selling windows xp and vista again and make it options for purchased PC's then see what people choose.

(if theres only 1 option then there is no choice)

there more people with aids than with windows 7, by microsofts reasoning, aids is better than windows 7 and even windows xp.

More people have cancer than world of warcraft which means cancer is better than world of warcraft

more people die each year than play COD, which means dying is more desirable than playing COD

(let me know if you see a flaw in this reasoning :) )

A non option is not a choice, just because a lot of people have something, it doesn't mean they want it. When I needed a new laptop, it came with windows 7, I didn't want windows 7 and reformatted and installed windows XP pro (the laptop became more responsive and my dx 9 games got a small FPS boost)

Microsoft would count me as someone who wants windows 7 since I bought a copy but in reality, it is due to me not having the option to get the laptop with out windows 7

What Microsoft did was restrict the sale of all other Microsoft OS except windows 7. They then count each new windows 7 license soft as a success. while from a profit standpoint, it is a success, from a user standpoint it is a failure as there is no choice for most computer purchases.
 

K-zon

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Yea, but alot of the countries or areas in question that are losing lot of XP users to 7, mainly has many issues within OS for bootlegs and pirated copies. And to say those are striped down copies either or bloated copies. More then likely to have an OS that hasnt been so striped down be a better choice, like Basic and Starter Editions....saying that XP isnt any better. That and is hard saying what features are lost in the distrubtion process for a sale as well. I dont know how many times, patching as taken a feature out of the OS, that i have to reinstall on to get back. Or download some program of basic crap to use to use a feature that requires that program to use the feature cause the program contains a feature, not the whole program.

Can just imagine sometimes probably what 7 actual lacks once and awhile against what it probably should have. Its like saying XP also couldnt hide icon names either for a default setting at one time. You need to get 7 now, and hope you actual get fast processing for it too.
 
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Another thing to look at is the context for each of these OSs.
Windows XP shipped within about 18 months of Windows 2000, and in fact, Windows 2000's share of the business market continued to grow even after XP shipped. So XP got shipped into a market where Microsoft already had a very strong and relatively new product in place.
A major issue with Vista was hardware compatibility. Since it would not run on most of the computers in place at the time, businesses were reluctant to introduce it and create more heterogenous desktop environments. Since they were permitted to purchase XP instead of Vista, they did so in order to maintain desktop consistency.
Windows 7, in contrast, entered a market where the other Microsoft choices were a very old but mature product (XP), and a product no one liked (Vista). Furthermore, since Windows 7 hardware specs were unchanged from Vista, every computer they had purchased from about 2006 onward could be upgraded to Windows 7, creating a much larger installed base of compatible hardware than was available for Vista.
 

Jarsh

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[citation][nom]opis[/nom]I was forced to pay the Micro$oft tax just to get the portable that I wanted, Ballmer and Crash got my cash but Windows 7 Deluxe home edition is wiped and replaced by openSUSE so I can say for sure that the figures are not right, shipped maybe but but not running.Maybe one of these days we will be able to buy our computers without being forced to pay for shoddy, unwanted operating systems from M$. After all, it is unconstitutional, isn't it >>>[/citation]


You weren't forced to do anything, it was your money free to spend on whatever you wish, and instead of building up a barebone laptop, you bought a pre-built with MS installed. This is a capitalist system where people vote with their dollars. The point of open-source is that you don't have to pay for it. So you paid for a fully licensed operating system with full professional support from Microsoft, and you wiped it out and replaced it with Linux. Really, you're getting the worst of both worlds.
 
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