Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 30, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner reported this on Thursday (local time) in Redmond. Sales are therefore developing better than experts had most recently expected. The software had gone on general sale in January.
With the figures now published, Microsoft is above the expectations of some analysts. Roger Kay of the American market research institute Endpoint Technologies Associates had, according to the0 Bloomberg news agency, for example forecast that 82 million licenses would be sold in the full year. Since computer sales traditionally pick up in the last months of the year, Microsoft has a good chance of exceeding these figures.
In recent weeks, considerable doubts had arisen about Vista’s prospects of success. In the fourth quarter of the past fiscal year, Microsoft reached only the lower end of its own forecast with the sale of PC software. In addition, the computer industry recently strongly criticized the new operating system. The head of the fourth-largest manufacturer Acer, Gianfranco Lanci, said the new Windows version hardly stimulated sales, and business customers in particular rejected it. At the analysts’ conference, Microsoft manager Turner also presented several major buyers of the new software. According to the information, the American airline Continental Airlines is installing 10 000 Vista licenses by the end of the year. The Brazilian bank Banco Bradesco is converting 70 000 computers.
