 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer |
Windows 7 has sold more than twice as many copies as any other version of the operating system during the same number of days of release, according to CEO Steve Ballmer, who made the comments at his company's annual shareholder meeting Thursday. Mr. Ballmer was mum on the specific numbers, but increased sales suggest that his company is on its way towards recovering from the Windows Vista debacle.
"We've already sold twice as many units as any OS in a comparable time frame," Mr. Ballmer said, according to coverage of the shareholder event from CNet. "Windows 7 is simply the best PC operating system that we or anyone else has ever built."
There are a number of factors contributing to a comparison between Windows 7 and earlier versions of the OS. First and foremost is the fact that the PC market has grown significantly since the last successful Windows launch, that of Windows XP in the beginning of this decade. In addition, there is substantial pent-up demand for the new version of Windows stemming from the large numbers of Windows XP users that never upgraded to Vista.
That shouldn't diminish what Microsoft has been able to do in peddling Windows 7, however, especially in light of a slow economy -- Mr. Ballmer did note that from his company's perspective, the economy had leveled off. Windows 7 has, so far, been a hit with the Wintel market.