[citation][nom]bloodlust22[/nom]WOW, So in other words alot of OEM's have bought a great deal of keys in bulk. Again, WOW. Instead of MS showing skewed data, Why not show how many of those 400 million keys have actually been activated by a end user? I highly doubt there's 400 million users out there running Windows 7. I would guess maybe 100-150 million are actually running Windows 7 while they other 250 - 300 million are still sitting at Dell, HP, Sony, Store shelves, etc...etc...[/citation]
I agree with the principle, even if the number might be a bit off.
Think about every computer sitting in a box in BestBuy or Staples. Think about every physical copy of Windows 7 (Home, Pro, Ultimate) sitting on the shelves. Think about the millions more computers and retail boxes sitting in the warehouses of Dell, HP, Newegg, etc... Every one of those has a Windows 7 License attached to it, and NONE of them are being used. It's not hard to imagine a few dozen million (maybe 100 million) unused licenses as we speak.
It's the same with the record and book industries. The "sales" numbers for newly released albums and books are the number of units shipped to a retailer. Ever walk into a store and see 100 copies of the same CD marked down to $5? Well, Sony BMG or Warner Bros claimed all 100 of those CDs as sales, even if no one buys them. You ever go to a wholesale/overstock book store? Those books are all returns. The publishers initially claimed them as sales, then the stores returned them (oops), and now they're 3-for-$10. Sure, that latest Vampire thriller sold 10-million copies, but 9-million ended up at a flea-market.
Long story short, the numbers released by the company doing the releasing are pretty meaningless this day and age.